"Sprung"Friday, March 31, 2006
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Trow da Bum Outta der!
George W. Bush has:1. Misled the nation about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction;
2. Misled the nation about ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda;
3. Used these falsehoods to lead our nation into war unsupported by international law;
4. Not told the truth about American policy with respect to the use of torture; and
5. Has directed the government to engage in domestic spying, in direct contravention of U.S. law.
Therefore, the voters of the town of Newfane ask that our representative to the U.S. House of Representatives file articles of impeachment to remove him from office.
New “Secret” Bush-Blair Memo Reveals Plan for Unprovoked war:
The New York Times published a front page story on Monday March 27th about another internal British memorandum, written in 2003 prior to the invasion of Iraq, that completely unmasks, once again, Bush’s repeated lying assertions that he went to war against Iraq as a “last choice.” The article shows that the Bush was dead-set on going to war and was mainly worried about how to proceed with the war even as Iraq was complying with UN weapons inspections and even as the inspectors were finding no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons program in Iraq. Below is a partial excerpt:
Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo by British Adviser Says
Published on Monday, March 27, 2006 by the New York Times
by Don Van Natta Jr.
LONDON — In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.
But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.
"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.
"The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March," Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. "This was when the bombing would begin…."
The memo indicates the two leaders envisioned a quick victory and a transition to a new Iraqi government that would be complicated, but manageable. Mr. Bush predicted that it was "unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups." Mr. Blair agreed with that assessment.
The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein...
At their meeting, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair candidly expressed their doubts that chemical, biological or nuclear weapons would be found in Iraq in the coming weeks, the memo said. The president spoke as if an invasion was unavoidable. The two leaders discussed a timetable for the war, details of the military campaign and plans for the aftermath of the war…
Without much elaboration, the memo also says the president raised three possible ways of provoking a confrontation.”
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Jesus Whipped
John 2:12-22
12After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.
13When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"
17His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me."[b]
18Then the Jews demanded of him, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?"
19Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."
20The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" 21But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
The temple in the time of Christ was an impressive structure. Remember that this is not the home for God originally built by Solomon. Created in a little over 46 years by “Herod the Builder” it was meant to inspire grandeur, and wonder in the hearts of all those who passed before it. It was built in order to garner favor with the Jewish people. Historians who have studied it agree that, had it survived the Romans, it would have been one of the wonders of the ancient world.
The temple structure itself sat on mount the size of twenty football fields. It was divided into three courtyards. The ancient historian Josephus wrote that the columns which were thirty feet high were so highly decorated that they "caused amazement to the spectators, by reason of the grandeur of the whole." (Antiquities of the Jews, Book XV, 11, v)
If you have ever seen pictures you can imagine this, but I will try to paint the picture in order to set the stage for our scripture. The tall structure is called the "The Holy Place," in which only priests were allowed to enter, this is what we see when we think of the temple proper. In the back of the "Holy Place" was the "Most Holy Place," in which only the High Priest was allowed to enter once a year. In front of the tall structure was the altar, where animal sacrifices were killed and burned. In front of the altar and Holy Place was a square courtyard for the Jewish women. Women were not allowed to enter the altar area. Non-Jews, i.e. Gentiles, were not allowed pass through the temple walls at all, upon pain of death. There were tablets inscribed with promises to that effect surrounding the gates that passed from the Court of the Gentiles to the others.
It was into this court, the court of the gentiles that Jesus first passed in the scripture we had just read. It had become tradition for the sacrificial animals be sold near the temple for matter of convenience. Later, that tradition moved to inside the Court of the Gentiles. Usually the sellers were priests themselves, or family that the priest had allowed to rent space within the temple wall. In addition foreign coin was not permitted to be offered up to God in the temple offerings, so there were money-changers who did the people the service of changing outside currency for the local breed—for a fee of course.
I need to convince you of something though, before going on. The Courts, including the court of the Gentiles were all a part of the worship space. Say, as our sanctuary building is divided into (from the parking circle) the Portico, the Narthex, the Nave, and the Chancel—that’s church vocabulary for the porch, the foyer, the sanctuary and the place where the pupil is. Everything within the walls of the Temple Mount are considered to be holy ground, consecrated worship space, and the dwelling of God.
It was this scene into which Christ walked. Imagine, the place of worship so profane not only with the shouts of competitors hawking their particular sacrificial animal, but the smell of all those animals. If you have ever mucked out a stable you know right what I mean.
It get’s Christ’s dander up.
Growing up we had kind of an unwritten rule in my mom’s house about taking off your shoes at the door. I remember one time I went into an appopleptic fit when two of my friends marched up the stair with their boots on. Partly it was from fear of my mother. But it was also something else. It was also the fact that I did love my mother and didn’t want to disobey a whish that she had. Well not this wish anyway, have no allusions that I was the perfect son. But Christ here is the same. He calls the temple his Father’s house on more than one occasion in the gospels. And now, as he enters on what should be a time of worship and of coming together to witness of God’s provision, he sees the filth that the priest of the Lord have allowed the temple to become. How utterly angry he must have been! The tribe of Levi, entrusted with the most holy mission of bring the will of God to the people, those who had a sacred trust, had instead made part of the house of God a fecal festival where the focus is on creating a profit.
As Christ’s anger begins, I again have a tape of the Disciples conversation going on in my head. Jesus comes in through the gate of the gentiles, into the Courts of the Lord. He silently and grimly assesses the situation and then…
“Hey, Andrew, what’s Jesus doin’?”
“Makin’ a whip I think…”
“Oh… Uh, why’s he doin’ that?”
“No idea.”
“You gonna ask him?”
“No. He’s making a whip. You wanna be first? You ask him.”
So, Jesus makes a whip. Probably something out of hempen rope that was handy. Nothing too serious, but still; A whip. The next passage in the text I think does a great job at understating the situation. It tells of how Jesus drove the people out of the Court of the Gentiles, sheep and cattle and people, turned over carts, tables… Lots of action going on there. The thing is, and this isn’t stated because the author assumes we know this already, but the passage doesn’t tell you how big the Court of the Gentiles is. The whole complex is about 20 football fields. The Court of the Gentiles is the biggest single area in the whole complex. It’s roughly about 5 football fields in size. FIVE. The scene in our imagination changes a little bit now. Before it was maybe a few minutes of righteous fury, glorious in its brevity. Now it is the systematic removal of people from an area of 500 yards. That takes a while. If the disciples thought Jesus was crazy last week…
Again the scripture lends itself to my over-active imagination. It says the disciples recall the scripture, “Zeal for you house will consume me.” (Psalms 69:9) I have them wide eyed and slack jawed, still standing near the gate where Jesus left them, waiting out this terrible passion that Christ has, and then gaining a glimmer of understanding when he calls it “my father’s house,” and being able to put the prophecy together with the prophesied.
This whole reading sticks out in our minds, and rightfully so. It is one of the few times we have any kind of anger described when regarding Jesus. Usually we have him pictured calming the waters, the soother, the healer. But here we get a glimpse of the righteous warrior. And we get a pretty clear message. There are some things you do not do.
So many times in Jesus’ ministry we can be a little confused at his actions because we forget how Jesus sees. He sees the heart. He cannot help it, I think; the woman at the well is a great example. He views her heart before he sees on single facial feature, before he realize she is Samaritan, or a woman. It is the same here in the Temple Court. Upon entering he sees a different kind of filth. That of the greedy human heart. He sees the purpose that put those men in those booths and it was not the desire for Godliness. It was not even the desire to provide fro their families. It was their desire to take advantage and to put the almighty dollar, or shekel, before the promise of God. That was more offensive to him than all the dung and sweat in the whole of Israel.
We have here a stern warning. Sterner than the tablets that promised death to the gentiles who dared to cross the line into the Jewish Courts of worship. From Christ it reads, “You come into my Father’s house to worship? Then you better be darn sure that your heart looking for Him and nothing else.” Christ doesn’t expect us to come to the House of God with perfect hearts, or even with the best intentions. He took all kinds into his service as followers and healed all sorts of people in a vast array of afflictions. But what he will not tolerate are people who will not come as open supplicants before the sight of God. Or those who stand in the way of people who are. The house of worship is a place where we can let all our pretenses fall away before the sight of God. To lie stripped bare of every arrogance we allow ourselves during the week and say to God, “I have wronged your name. Take me back. Teach me again. I belong not to my self but to you and You alone.” But, if we chose to enter these gates with hard hearts, with pride, with inflated self worth, with ulterior motives… then we are only fooling ourselves until Christ is done making his whip.
Realize too that there are several more sublte ways in which we can abuse the Temple of God. Ways that are much easier for us to be tricked into doing by the Devil. Something so simple as forgeting what worship is about.
When the youth and I were planning for Youth Sunday, we took a few weeks and talked just about what worship was. At the basic form, worship is what comes from our hearts to God. So often i think we get it wrong by expecting worship to be the fix in our weekly lives. We expect to come to worship and leave with a sense of well being and peace. A sense that we can now face the week. But that isn't the purpose of worship. SOmetimes that does happen, but it is a side note. It is the effect, the cause of which is our coming to God in RIGHT worship. If we leave with a sense of unease, or we feel as if it wasn't worth our time... Usually we must consider the state of our own hearts as cause. Worship is NOT for us. It is for God.
Note here that the temple was called a house of WORSHIP. Not a house of sacrifice, of offerings, or teaching, or prohpecy, or even preaching. Everything done in the house of God is to lead to the WORSHIP of the Father. Communion between our hearts and the almighty.
We are left in this passage with a sense of hope. As you can imagine Jesus’ actions created quite a ruckus in the workings of the temple and either the priests, or perhaps their family members as Christ is giving them the heave-ho, they ask Jesus “Who gives you the right to do this?”
Our hope is in His response. And look closely at what he says, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up.” The “you” in that sentence is understood… You tear it down, I’ll build it up. We are the destroyers. In the more literal sense he is speaking to his accusers, either in the crowd shouting for Barabas or in the council of the Sanhedrin. And, as the bible is for all the ages, He is also speaking directly to us.
No matter what we destroy, no matter what we fail, no matter the number of times our hearts break out of that stone, and the spirit of God comes flooding in all new and fresh, tearing down those walls we spent painstaking years putting up. No matter how often that happens, Christ will always rebuild in our hearts anew.
So, in some ways we need to be periodically whipped by Christ. We need that anger to sweep through us and clear out that which is keeping us from the Temple of God. And most of all we need Christ to be there at the end of it, whip still in hand, saying, “God ahead. Do it again. I’ll be here. You tear it down. And I will build it back up, better than ever.” Jesus truly is the Temple rebuilt. The place where in which we can worship and become reconciled to God.
This is the promise of Christ, and the will of a loving God who wants so desperately to be in the reality of our lives that he will allow himself to be, as the scriptures say, “Consumed with Zeal” for us and for the wish that our hearts be close to His.
12After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.
13When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"
17His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me."[b]
18Then the Jews demanded of him, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?"
19Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."
20The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" 21But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
The temple in the time of Christ was an impressive structure. Remember that this is not the home for God originally built by Solomon. Created in a little over 46 years by “Herod the Builder” it was meant to inspire grandeur, and wonder in the hearts of all those who passed before it. It was built in order to garner favor with the Jewish people. Historians who have studied it agree that, had it survived the Romans, it would have been one of the wonders of the ancient world.
The temple structure itself sat on mount the size of twenty football fields. It was divided into three courtyards. The ancient historian Josephus wrote that the columns which were thirty feet high were so highly decorated that they "caused amazement to the spectators, by reason of the grandeur of the whole." (Antiquities of the Jews, Book XV, 11, v)
If you have ever seen pictures you can imagine this, but I will try to paint the picture in order to set the stage for our scripture. The tall structure is called the "The Holy Place," in which only priests were allowed to enter, this is what we see when we think of the temple proper. In the back of the "Holy Place" was the "Most Holy Place," in which only the High Priest was allowed to enter once a year. In front of the tall structure was the altar, where animal sacrifices were killed and burned. In front of the altar and Holy Place was a square courtyard for the Jewish women. Women were not allowed to enter the altar area. Non-Jews, i.e. Gentiles, were not allowed pass through the temple walls at all, upon pain of death. There were tablets inscribed with promises to that effect surrounding the gates that passed from the Court of the Gentiles to the others.
It was into this court, the court of the gentiles that Jesus first passed in the scripture we had just read. It had become tradition for the sacrificial animals be sold near the temple for matter of convenience. Later, that tradition moved to inside the Court of the Gentiles. Usually the sellers were priests themselves, or family that the priest had allowed to rent space within the temple wall. In addition foreign coin was not permitted to be offered up to God in the temple offerings, so there were money-changers who did the people the service of changing outside currency for the local breed—for a fee of course.
I need to convince you of something though, before going on. The Courts, including the court of the Gentiles were all a part of the worship space. Say, as our sanctuary building is divided into (from the parking circle) the Portico, the Narthex, the Nave, and the Chancel—that’s church vocabulary for the porch, the foyer, the sanctuary and the place where the pupil is. Everything within the walls of the Temple Mount are considered to be holy ground, consecrated worship space, and the dwelling of God.
It was this scene into which Christ walked. Imagine, the place of worship so profane not only with the shouts of competitors hawking their particular sacrificial animal, but the smell of all those animals. If you have ever mucked out a stable you know right what I mean.
It get’s Christ’s dander up.
Growing up we had kind of an unwritten rule in my mom’s house about taking off your shoes at the door. I remember one time I went into an appopleptic fit when two of my friends marched up the stair with their boots on. Partly it was from fear of my mother. But it was also something else. It was also the fact that I did love my mother and didn’t want to disobey a whish that she had. Well not this wish anyway, have no allusions that I was the perfect son. But Christ here is the same. He calls the temple his Father’s house on more than one occasion in the gospels. And now, as he enters on what should be a time of worship and of coming together to witness of God’s provision, he sees the filth that the priest of the Lord have allowed the temple to become. How utterly angry he must have been! The tribe of Levi, entrusted with the most holy mission of bring the will of God to the people, those who had a sacred trust, had instead made part of the house of God a fecal festival where the focus is on creating a profit.
As Christ’s anger begins, I again have a tape of the Disciples conversation going on in my head. Jesus comes in through the gate of the gentiles, into the Courts of the Lord. He silently and grimly assesses the situation and then…
“Hey, Andrew, what’s Jesus doin’?”
“Makin’ a whip I think…”
“Oh… Uh, why’s he doin’ that?”
“No idea.”
“You gonna ask him?”
“No. He’s making a whip. You wanna be first? You ask him.”
So, Jesus makes a whip. Probably something out of hempen rope that was handy. Nothing too serious, but still; A whip. The next passage in the text I think does a great job at understating the situation. It tells of how Jesus drove the people out of the Court of the Gentiles, sheep and cattle and people, turned over carts, tables… Lots of action going on there. The thing is, and this isn’t stated because the author assumes we know this already, but the passage doesn’t tell you how big the Court of the Gentiles is. The whole complex is about 20 football fields. The Court of the Gentiles is the biggest single area in the whole complex. It’s roughly about 5 football fields in size. FIVE. The scene in our imagination changes a little bit now. Before it was maybe a few minutes of righteous fury, glorious in its brevity. Now it is the systematic removal of people from an area of 500 yards. That takes a while. If the disciples thought Jesus was crazy last week…
Again the scripture lends itself to my over-active imagination. It says the disciples recall the scripture, “Zeal for you house will consume me.” (Psalms 69:9) I have them wide eyed and slack jawed, still standing near the gate where Jesus left them, waiting out this terrible passion that Christ has, and then gaining a glimmer of understanding when he calls it “my father’s house,” and being able to put the prophecy together with the prophesied.
This whole reading sticks out in our minds, and rightfully so. It is one of the few times we have any kind of anger described when regarding Jesus. Usually we have him pictured calming the waters, the soother, the healer. But here we get a glimpse of the righteous warrior. And we get a pretty clear message. There are some things you do not do.
So many times in Jesus’ ministry we can be a little confused at his actions because we forget how Jesus sees. He sees the heart. He cannot help it, I think; the woman at the well is a great example. He views her heart before he sees on single facial feature, before he realize she is Samaritan, or a woman. It is the same here in the Temple Court. Upon entering he sees a different kind of filth. That of the greedy human heart. He sees the purpose that put those men in those booths and it was not the desire for Godliness. It was not even the desire to provide fro their families. It was their desire to take advantage and to put the almighty dollar, or shekel, before the promise of God. That was more offensive to him than all the dung and sweat in the whole of Israel.
We have here a stern warning. Sterner than the tablets that promised death to the gentiles who dared to cross the line into the Jewish Courts of worship. From Christ it reads, “You come into my Father’s house to worship? Then you better be darn sure that your heart looking for Him and nothing else.” Christ doesn’t expect us to come to the House of God with perfect hearts, or even with the best intentions. He took all kinds into his service as followers and healed all sorts of people in a vast array of afflictions. But what he will not tolerate are people who will not come as open supplicants before the sight of God. Or those who stand in the way of people who are. The house of worship is a place where we can let all our pretenses fall away before the sight of God. To lie stripped bare of every arrogance we allow ourselves during the week and say to God, “I have wronged your name. Take me back. Teach me again. I belong not to my self but to you and You alone.” But, if we chose to enter these gates with hard hearts, with pride, with inflated self worth, with ulterior motives… then we are only fooling ourselves until Christ is done making his whip.
Realize too that there are several more sublte ways in which we can abuse the Temple of God. Ways that are much easier for us to be tricked into doing by the Devil. Something so simple as forgeting what worship is about.
When the youth and I were planning for Youth Sunday, we took a few weeks and talked just about what worship was. At the basic form, worship is what comes from our hearts to God. So often i think we get it wrong by expecting worship to be the fix in our weekly lives. We expect to come to worship and leave with a sense of well being and peace. A sense that we can now face the week. But that isn't the purpose of worship. SOmetimes that does happen, but it is a side note. It is the effect, the cause of which is our coming to God in RIGHT worship. If we leave with a sense of unease, or we feel as if it wasn't worth our time... Usually we must consider the state of our own hearts as cause. Worship is NOT for us. It is for God.
Note here that the temple was called a house of WORSHIP. Not a house of sacrifice, of offerings, or teaching, or prohpecy, or even preaching. Everything done in the house of God is to lead to the WORSHIP of the Father. Communion between our hearts and the almighty.
We are left in this passage with a sense of hope. As you can imagine Jesus’ actions created quite a ruckus in the workings of the temple and either the priests, or perhaps their family members as Christ is giving them the heave-ho, they ask Jesus “Who gives you the right to do this?”
Our hope is in His response. And look closely at what he says, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up.” The “you” in that sentence is understood… You tear it down, I’ll build it up. We are the destroyers. In the more literal sense he is speaking to his accusers, either in the crowd shouting for Barabas or in the council of the Sanhedrin. And, as the bible is for all the ages, He is also speaking directly to us.
No matter what we destroy, no matter what we fail, no matter the number of times our hearts break out of that stone, and the spirit of God comes flooding in all new and fresh, tearing down those walls we spent painstaking years putting up. No matter how often that happens, Christ will always rebuild in our hearts anew.
So, in some ways we need to be periodically whipped by Christ. We need that anger to sweep through us and clear out that which is keeping us from the Temple of God. And most of all we need Christ to be there at the end of it, whip still in hand, saying, “God ahead. Do it again. I’ll be here. You tear it down. And I will build it back up, better than ever.” Jesus truly is the Temple rebuilt. The place where in which we can worship and become reconciled to God.
This is the promise of Christ, and the will of a loving God who wants so desperately to be in the reality of our lives that he will allow himself to be, as the scriptures say, “Consumed with Zeal” for us and for the wish that our hearts be close to His.
Friday, March 17, 2006
We set you Up the Bomb
I think people get a little too worked up over curse words. I mean I know the shpeal about how it's uncouth and un-creative, and a bad way to express ourselves, Blah, blah, blah. But where would we be without the colorful effervesence that is "sailor-talk."
Just like anything there is of course a good and better way to do it. I think there IS a creative way to use profanity so that it would add to rather than detract from any language experience.
I mean seriously. It seems like we are really trained up to think that the words have a certain power over us. Rather, I mean, not when they are used in anger towards someone, but rather as explicatives in conversation. I think they are a valid form of communication. There shouldn't be anything such as "bad" words, unless you have a way of making the words sit in the corner...
Just like anything there is of course a good and better way to do it. I think there IS a creative way to use profanity so that it would add to rather than detract from any language experience.
I mean seriously. It seems like we are really trained up to think that the words have a certain power over us. Rather, I mean, not when they are used in anger towards someone, but rather as explicatives in conversation. I think they are a valid form of communication. There shouldn't be anything such as "bad" words, unless you have a way of making the words sit in the corner...
Monday, March 13, 2006
the Cost of Christ
Mark 8:31-38
31He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
33But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."
34Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35For whoever wants to save his life[c] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."
Jesus asks a lot of us.
I will tell you that, as a whole, this church owns up to that asking almost all the time. In just over the short year that I have been here and gotten to know this church and her family, I want you all to know that I, well that we, Leah and I both, are proud to own Buffalo Presbyterian as our church home.
We have certainly been blessed by everyone here. Yet, beyond that even, this church has in it those people who are about the business of God; with deeds both daily and large and small in size. Ann Dixon’s thanks is certainly proof of that. In addition though to the support and kindness there are those who work tirelessly, endlessly for the good of the church family. It’s like putting out the best silver for guests at dinner, where the only thoughts of those preparing are of the beloved guests, and the honor that is wished on them by the time and extra care that is taken in the meal.
A few weeks ago for the Ash Wednesday service we read Jesus’ instructions for fasting and prayer. Reminders that these disciplines are sacred things between us and God alone, which truly must be against our human desires.
When we do something good, we want, well what Leah and I call “pets and scratches.”
When we were newly married Leah received, as a gift, a book called “The Five Love Languages.” The author, Gary Chapman, was here in Greensboro not too long ago. But in this book we discovered that my “love language” or the way in which I understand that someone loves me is from the recognition of my work. I forget how “pets and scratches” started but it became a half joke. If I was mentioning some maintenance item that I had done more than a few times Leah knew I felt like I had missed out on “pets and scratches” or full recognition of my work.
Baring that fact that a little bit of recognition is healthy and nice, how are people like me supposed to reconcile ourselves to the work of Christ? Which often is meant, is intentioned, to go un-noticed except by God.
Partly from faith in His blessings, and the rest from patience, even still… that’s asking a lot don’t you think?
In verse 34 Jesus lays it all flat out for the disciples and basically anyone in earshot who he has gathered around him. “If you want to follow me, your life is forfeit.”
I love the fishermen disciples, Peter and Andrew and the others. In some way I feel like I identify better with them than with the tax collector or any of the rest. I feel like I could in some way know what was going on in their brains at different points when Jesus reveals certain things to them.
We forget sometimes how astounded they must have been at certain times! For instance, I’ve seen all six episodes of the Star Wars movies a… few times. The story is very involved and having seen it so many times I forget the big reveals and how they appear to first timers. (Darth Vader is Luke’s DAD!?) But watch it with someone seeing it for the first time, and they are filled with wonder and disbelief.
Knowing how scripture turns out is a little like that. I think we forget that when Jesus begins talking to his friends of many years about his impending torture and demise at the hands of the Sanhedrin they are floored and depressed to say the least! Add to that his promise that he would be raised from the dead. So many things about Christ’s true purpose were missed by the Disciples. They had seen him raise Lazarus, sure, but who will do the raising when he is in the tomb himself? Earlier in this same chapter, in verse 21, he reminds them of the miracle of the loaves and fish, reminding them of the abundance created out of even a small gift. Yet they are still fretting over food and trivial things, Jesus comments… “Why do you not yet understand?”
Jesus is asking a lot out of the Disciples. Peter, poor Peter, tries to get Jesus aside for a moment. Perhaps to talk some sense into the guy scaring everybody with stories of death. I have a fiction book written about the life of Christ that is basically a paraphrase on the Gospel. It’s a fun read and lends itself well to create a very human experience, but one of my favorite moment is when Jesus give Simon a nickname. In the Bible it usually reads Simon, who is also called Peter, or something near to that in every translation. In the novel it comes up in one of these, “Why are you guys not getting this?” moments that Jesus frequently has, in which he cries, “Simon, you got a mind like a rock.” I love being able to think that Jesus created this good natured jibe and the apostles picked it up. I think I love it so much because I could see Christ saying the same thing about me. “Man, your skull is thick!”
But dear Simon-Peter, in this instance is made an example of. We’re getting down to the wire of the Ministry and I imagine Christ could have been a little anxious with the disciples to finally grasp some of what has been going on. So he shouts, “Your thoughts are not from God, but from men!”
Imagine what Peter could have said to him… Probably the exact same thing any of us would say if a dear friend and traveling companion told us that they were going to die. “No, no, Jesus don’t say these things. You know how James gets, he’s very emotional, you are scaring him. Look, why don’t we skirt Jerusalem for a while, until after Passover, we’ll go back to Capernaum, you can do some preaching there, we’ll take some time off. Look it will be ok, all right? No one has to die. Listen to reason…”
Those can all be loving, loving words. Nothing wrong with them. But we must be wary. Good is not Godly. Kindness is not the Kingdom. Works alone, don’t get us into heaven.
When Jesus rebukes Peter, I think we tend to imagine that his words must have been so terrible to have Jesus react so. But in truth Jesus was reacting to the deceiver who was using Peter’s words to speak to Jesus. The subtext of Christ’s words here are, “Oh Peter, dear friends. How much I wish I could go with you to Capernaum. How I long to be on a fishing boat with you instead of Ciaphas. How wonderful it would be to watch you raise families, continue this ministry and watch it grow.” But Christ knows. He asks nothing of us that He himself is not already doing. He knows the Father’s will and the scenes that must play out. He repeats to the Disciples the words he hears from God his own Father. If you want to be mine, then your whole life is mine.
When we read that we must give up desires, we imagine the vices, the selfish things we all do. And that’s true. But it also means the good intentions. We think sometimes that we must do right instead of wrong when in actuality we must understand that we must do only what God perceives as right. Which in our eyes and in the eyes of the world may appear so very wrong.
Look again to our example in scripture. It is madness by all the standards of the time for Christ to go to the one hotspot where he is sure to be recognized and acted upon. So much earlier in the gospels do we read that the Sanhedrin begins to plot against Jesus. They have not bee idle all that time, and the Disciples know it! By the world’s standards and by logical conclusion what Jesus was doing was madness. But it was the true course in God’s plan. What Peter said to Christ was probably very loving and kind. But in the sight of God it was a temptation against the will of God.
So, in this season of Lent, in this time of penitence (which is simply expressing remorse for our sins), instead of struggling to identify the bad things and instead do good, we are set free by Christ’s words. Free to identify that which is Godly, and joyfully do the things which the world might find crazy, but bring a smile to the heart of God.
Jesus pointedly says, perhaps to Simon, “the Rock”, Peter as much as to anyone else in verse 36. I could do the right thing, Peter, or I can do the Will of my Father.
This season of Lent is one of reflection, and one of action, not of good deeds, but of Godly ones. Those done in joy and out of love for God, and God alone.
31He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
33But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."
34Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35For whoever wants to save his life[c] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."
Jesus asks a lot of us.
I will tell you that, as a whole, this church owns up to that asking almost all the time. In just over the short year that I have been here and gotten to know this church and her family, I want you all to know that I, well that we, Leah and I both, are proud to own Buffalo Presbyterian as our church home.
We have certainly been blessed by everyone here. Yet, beyond that even, this church has in it those people who are about the business of God; with deeds both daily and large and small in size. Ann Dixon’s thanks is certainly proof of that. In addition though to the support and kindness there are those who work tirelessly, endlessly for the good of the church family. It’s like putting out the best silver for guests at dinner, where the only thoughts of those preparing are of the beloved guests, and the honor that is wished on them by the time and extra care that is taken in the meal.
A few weeks ago for the Ash Wednesday service we read Jesus’ instructions for fasting and prayer. Reminders that these disciplines are sacred things between us and God alone, which truly must be against our human desires.
When we do something good, we want, well what Leah and I call “pets and scratches.”
When we were newly married Leah received, as a gift, a book called “The Five Love Languages.” The author, Gary Chapman, was here in Greensboro not too long ago. But in this book we discovered that my “love language” or the way in which I understand that someone loves me is from the recognition of my work. I forget how “pets and scratches” started but it became a half joke. If I was mentioning some maintenance item that I had done more than a few times Leah knew I felt like I had missed out on “pets and scratches” or full recognition of my work.
Baring that fact that a little bit of recognition is healthy and nice, how are people like me supposed to reconcile ourselves to the work of Christ? Which often is meant, is intentioned, to go un-noticed except by God.
Partly from faith in His blessings, and the rest from patience, even still… that’s asking a lot don’t you think?
In verse 34 Jesus lays it all flat out for the disciples and basically anyone in earshot who he has gathered around him. “If you want to follow me, your life is forfeit.”
I love the fishermen disciples, Peter and Andrew and the others. In some way I feel like I identify better with them than with the tax collector or any of the rest. I feel like I could in some way know what was going on in their brains at different points when Jesus reveals certain things to them.
We forget sometimes how astounded they must have been at certain times! For instance, I’ve seen all six episodes of the Star Wars movies a… few times. The story is very involved and having seen it so many times I forget the big reveals and how they appear to first timers. (Darth Vader is Luke’s DAD!?) But watch it with someone seeing it for the first time, and they are filled with wonder and disbelief.
Knowing how scripture turns out is a little like that. I think we forget that when Jesus begins talking to his friends of many years about his impending torture and demise at the hands of the Sanhedrin they are floored and depressed to say the least! Add to that his promise that he would be raised from the dead. So many things about Christ’s true purpose were missed by the Disciples. They had seen him raise Lazarus, sure, but who will do the raising when he is in the tomb himself? Earlier in this same chapter, in verse 21, he reminds them of the miracle of the loaves and fish, reminding them of the abundance created out of even a small gift. Yet they are still fretting over food and trivial things, Jesus comments… “Why do you not yet understand?”
Jesus is asking a lot out of the Disciples. Peter, poor Peter, tries to get Jesus aside for a moment. Perhaps to talk some sense into the guy scaring everybody with stories of death. I have a fiction book written about the life of Christ that is basically a paraphrase on the Gospel. It’s a fun read and lends itself well to create a very human experience, but one of my favorite moment is when Jesus give Simon a nickname. In the Bible it usually reads Simon, who is also called Peter, or something near to that in every translation. In the novel it comes up in one of these, “Why are you guys not getting this?” moments that Jesus frequently has, in which he cries, “Simon, you got a mind like a rock.” I love being able to think that Jesus created this good natured jibe and the apostles picked it up. I think I love it so much because I could see Christ saying the same thing about me. “Man, your skull is thick!”
But dear Simon-Peter, in this instance is made an example of. We’re getting down to the wire of the Ministry and I imagine Christ could have been a little anxious with the disciples to finally grasp some of what has been going on. So he shouts, “Your thoughts are not from God, but from men!”
Imagine what Peter could have said to him… Probably the exact same thing any of us would say if a dear friend and traveling companion told us that they were going to die. “No, no, Jesus don’t say these things. You know how James gets, he’s very emotional, you are scaring him. Look, why don’t we skirt Jerusalem for a while, until after Passover, we’ll go back to Capernaum, you can do some preaching there, we’ll take some time off. Look it will be ok, all right? No one has to die. Listen to reason…”
Those can all be loving, loving words. Nothing wrong with them. But we must be wary. Good is not Godly. Kindness is not the Kingdom. Works alone, don’t get us into heaven.
When Jesus rebukes Peter, I think we tend to imagine that his words must have been so terrible to have Jesus react so. But in truth Jesus was reacting to the deceiver who was using Peter’s words to speak to Jesus. The subtext of Christ’s words here are, “Oh Peter, dear friends. How much I wish I could go with you to Capernaum. How I long to be on a fishing boat with you instead of Ciaphas. How wonderful it would be to watch you raise families, continue this ministry and watch it grow.” But Christ knows. He asks nothing of us that He himself is not already doing. He knows the Father’s will and the scenes that must play out. He repeats to the Disciples the words he hears from God his own Father. If you want to be mine, then your whole life is mine.
When we read that we must give up desires, we imagine the vices, the selfish things we all do. And that’s true. But it also means the good intentions. We think sometimes that we must do right instead of wrong when in actuality we must understand that we must do only what God perceives as right. Which in our eyes and in the eyes of the world may appear so very wrong.
Look again to our example in scripture. It is madness by all the standards of the time for Christ to go to the one hotspot where he is sure to be recognized and acted upon. So much earlier in the gospels do we read that the Sanhedrin begins to plot against Jesus. They have not bee idle all that time, and the Disciples know it! By the world’s standards and by logical conclusion what Jesus was doing was madness. But it was the true course in God’s plan. What Peter said to Christ was probably very loving and kind. But in the sight of God it was a temptation against the will of God.
So, in this season of Lent, in this time of penitence (which is simply expressing remorse for our sins), instead of struggling to identify the bad things and instead do good, we are set free by Christ’s words. Free to identify that which is Godly, and joyfully do the things which the world might find crazy, but bring a smile to the heart of God.
Jesus pointedly says, perhaps to Simon, “the Rock”, Peter as much as to anyone else in verse 36. I could do the right thing, Peter, or I can do the Will of my Father.
This season of Lent is one of reflection, and one of action, not of good deeds, but of Godly ones. Those done in joy and out of love for God, and God alone.
Become the Beast
an excerpt from Jim Lewis's 'Notes From Under the Fig Tree'...
"In the book, “Captain America and the Crusade Against Evil: The Dilemma of Zealous Nationalism,” Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence mention a featured article printed in the German magazine Der Spiegel on the Bush administration’s crusade against evil. Accompanying the article were satirical cartoons. Talk about imitating cultural images! Bush is drawn with a Rambo body holding an automatic weapon and ammunition belts. Vice President Cheney takes on the identity of “The Terminator.” National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice is dressed as Xena, the female Warrior Princess of Hollywood film. Donald Rumsfeld becomes the comic book character Conan the Barbarian, holding a sword dripping with blood.
One might think that the Bush administration would object to such a depiction, eschew these images. Not so. When Daniel Coats, the U.S. Ambassador to Germany at the time, visited the editorial offices of Der Spiegel, we are told he was not there to protest the cartoons but to report that that “the President was flattered” by them. Coats ordered thirty-three poster-size copies of the cover to take back to the White House. Bush’s staff, depicted on the cover, each wanted a copy.
Chase the beast, you run like the beast. Plot and plan like the beast, you begin to think like the beast. Arm for the kill against the beast, you embrace the weapons of the beast. Look the beast in the eye, and you get a terrible shock. You discover you have become the beast."
"In the book, “Captain America and the Crusade Against Evil: The Dilemma of Zealous Nationalism,” Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence mention a featured article printed in the German magazine Der Spiegel on the Bush administration’s crusade against evil. Accompanying the article were satirical cartoons. Talk about imitating cultural images! Bush is drawn with a Rambo body holding an automatic weapon and ammunition belts. Vice President Cheney takes on the identity of “The Terminator.” National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice is dressed as Xena, the female Warrior Princess of Hollywood film. Donald Rumsfeld becomes the comic book character Conan the Barbarian, holding a sword dripping with blood.
One might think that the Bush administration would object to such a depiction, eschew these images. Not so. When Daniel Coats, the U.S. Ambassador to Germany at the time, visited the editorial offices of Der Spiegel, we are told he was not there to protest the cartoons but to report that that “the President was flattered” by them. Coats ordered thirty-three poster-size copies of the cover to take back to the White House. Bush’s staff, depicted on the cover, each wanted a copy.
Chase the beast, you run like the beast. Plot and plan like the beast, you begin to think like the beast. Arm for the kill against the beast, you embrace the weapons of the beast. Look the beast in the eye, and you get a terrible shock. You discover you have become the beast."
Thursday, March 09, 2006
A Quiet Place
Growing up one of my favorite pastimes was to go stargazing. My dad shared his love of stars with my brother and I, and through him the love was ushered to us. Ever the scholar my dad didn’t just have us looking at the stars and planets, but was relating to us the size of the objects relative to earth. That struck a nerve with me early on. There was just something wonderful and mysterious about looking at an object so distant and so large in real time. We would take the telescope out into the yard and see the moons of Jupiter, on clear nights even the smudge that was a planet sized storm that had raged ever since humans had been looking at it. We spent nights trying to find and focus on the rings of Saturn, the phases of the Venus, even the colorful brilliance of Orion’s stars. In college I continued, I took Astronomy I as my science requirement and Astronomy II even when I had to cram it in to an already full course-load.
Our passage from Isaiah is equally beautiful. “Lift your eyes, look to the heavens…” God’s majesty and artistic nature are communicated to us on a million different levels through the natural world. Even on “inspirational” greeting cards we have captured pictures of starry nights, rushing streams, a burst of spring color. No matter if the source of the wonder is secular or non-secular, every person on this earth can agree the spiritual power nature can have.
It should come then, as no surprise, to witness in the gospel of Mark that Christ himself is equally moved by sights of wonder. After days filled with people and preaching and healing he gets up early, walks out of the house, and watches the sun rise.
I’ll let you all in on a little secret. Jesus was an introvert.
There is a personality test that is the nation’s standard in such tests. It’s called the “Myers-Briggs” after the couple that first created it. It can nail you down pretty well, and be pretty revealing and enlightening about things you didn’t even know. I’ve taken it a few times as a part of Church leadership courses, or weekend retreats—for some reason my personality type is hard for some people to believe. Not to draw purposeful comparisons here but… I’m an introvert too.
Usually people think of the extrovert as the one who is the social butterfly, out in the limelight, shaking hands, greeting the morning with a bright smile and spring in their step. While we picture the introverts and turtle-y cave dwellers who venture out at night and read by dim lamplights shunning the laughter of crowds.
The truest definition of these two personality types, according to Myers-Briggs however is simple and far different. Introverts are merely those people who gain or re-gain their strength by being alone, or doing more solitary things. Extroverts are those who gain strength by being out in crowds, surrounded by peers and friends.
I swear to you, I’m about as die hard and introvert as they get. I love being with people, going on week-long retreats, even parties—I routinely make Leah go to gallery openings at the Green Hill Center even when her job doesn’t require that she attend. However, I can only exist doing these things for so long and afterward I need time alone to recover. I love going on trips, especially with the Youth, but after a week at Work Camp, I basically shut myself off from the world for a few days. Even Leah is lucky to get more than a few words out of me.
So, here too, we get a glimpse into the lifestyle of Jesus. Not just in this passage but in so many points in the gospels we see that Jesus is very often doing his own thing. Going camping and fasting alone for 30 days, sleeping in the back of the boat, here watching the sunrise alone, and even in His final hours he asks his closest friends to still pray a little way apart from Him.
This brings to light something for all of us however. Weather, bases on my hasty description, you see your self as either and introvert or an extrovert, we must all benefit from time spent “refilling our tanks.” Even Christ himself did not constantly run at 100% all the time, 7 days a week. Even though he healed on the Sabbath he know exactly what it meant to take a Sabbath Moment. We can find him praying along, being peaceful, waiting, allowing God the time and opportunity to dwell more closely. Even CHRIST, who was God incarnate, allowed time out of a ministry that was the most important in history and one that he KNEW was only going to last 3 years, even SO, he still carved out the time to be only with his Master and Creator.
Every person here has been weary. Every one of us has been weak when we most needed to be strong. Scripture states so truly and so rightly that even the young stumble and fall.
Yet… what does the Bible promise us? If we hope in the Lord, if we let everything ride on God, if we cast every chance we have at prosperity in this life, on Him alone, then we will be RENEWED. Made NEW again. Then it goes on... promising more than being new, we will soar! On wings like eagles. We will run and never tire.
But how? How do we hope in the Lord? What is the activity that does this thing? Many things, a life like Christ. But—we have here today, one, one facet of instruction. Find that quiet place. Watch that sunrise…
That alone can be incredibly difficult. In the world of today we can fell that there are so many different thing pulling us in so many different directions. A moment of peace is all we can get and even then that is asking a lot. Leah and I both have been incredibly blessed to have traveled to Italy. Unfortunately we went in separate college trips, but the other day we were reminiscing about or experiences and one of the things we both missed was busy restaurants. Sounds like a crazy thing to miss from a couple of introverts right? The thing was, neither of us is fluent in Italian. So, in the midst of 60 or 70 animated conversations, all we heard were the lyrical tones of a fairly beautiful language. Something like that is possible I think no matter where we are. By process of mind we can somehow turn of the part of our brain that is absorbing input from the world, let it fade into the white noise of life… and find a kind of surreal peacefulness. I wonder sometimes if Christ didn’t do something exactly like this during parts of his trial with the Sanhedrin in the last hours of his life. Shut them off, let them fade to the background, find peace, and talk with his Father.
In our scripture today he has found peace in the colors God has laid out for him in the early morning. When Simon finally finds Jesus, apparently he didn’t leave a note before going out. They ask him, as any of us might as, “Where in the world have you been!? We’ve been looking for you all morning!” My mom used to get flustered when she lost track of us in Sears Department Store. But Jesus gives his reply, and did you catch this? Not even acknowledging their question! I can almost picture the scene. Simon is puffing up the side of the hill, and breathlessly asks. Jesus is still looking toward the sunrise and simply delivers to Simon and the others the instructions for the next few weeks. Can you hear the subtext in Jesus’ words? We’ve herd them before… “Where have you been?” “We were looking for you!” Come Jesus’ answer, “I have been about my father’s business.”
Like Christ we must find our way to separate ourselves from the worries of the world. No note, no apologies, just communion with God.
We cannot expect ourselves to function without finding those places in life where we feel able to commune with the Almighty. Weather that is a sunrise, a sunset, a gloriously refurbished sanctuary, or a just a step outside on the porch. It doesn’t have to be long, it doesn’t have to be an hour or thirty days, it just has to happen.
The promise of renewal, of energy, of flight that is fancy free is there. Waiting for those who can find that quiet place in the physical realm, or in the mental and spiritual one, but a place that is apart from the world long enough for God to bring solace and instruction on the next piece of our journey.
Our passage from Isaiah is equally beautiful. “Lift your eyes, look to the heavens…” God’s majesty and artistic nature are communicated to us on a million different levels through the natural world. Even on “inspirational” greeting cards we have captured pictures of starry nights, rushing streams, a burst of spring color. No matter if the source of the wonder is secular or non-secular, every person on this earth can agree the spiritual power nature can have.
It should come then, as no surprise, to witness in the gospel of Mark that Christ himself is equally moved by sights of wonder. After days filled with people and preaching and healing he gets up early, walks out of the house, and watches the sun rise.
I’ll let you all in on a little secret. Jesus was an introvert.
There is a personality test that is the nation’s standard in such tests. It’s called the “Myers-Briggs” after the couple that first created it. It can nail you down pretty well, and be pretty revealing and enlightening about things you didn’t even know. I’ve taken it a few times as a part of Church leadership courses, or weekend retreats—for some reason my personality type is hard for some people to believe. Not to draw purposeful comparisons here but… I’m an introvert too.
Usually people think of the extrovert as the one who is the social butterfly, out in the limelight, shaking hands, greeting the morning with a bright smile and spring in their step. While we picture the introverts and turtle-y cave dwellers who venture out at night and read by dim lamplights shunning the laughter of crowds.
The truest definition of these two personality types, according to Myers-Briggs however is simple and far different. Introverts are merely those people who gain or re-gain their strength by being alone, or doing more solitary things. Extroverts are those who gain strength by being out in crowds, surrounded by peers and friends.
I swear to you, I’m about as die hard and introvert as they get. I love being with people, going on week-long retreats, even parties—I routinely make Leah go to gallery openings at the Green Hill Center even when her job doesn’t require that she attend. However, I can only exist doing these things for so long and afterward I need time alone to recover. I love going on trips, especially with the Youth, but after a week at Work Camp, I basically shut myself off from the world for a few days. Even Leah is lucky to get more than a few words out of me.
So, here too, we get a glimpse into the lifestyle of Jesus. Not just in this passage but in so many points in the gospels we see that Jesus is very often doing his own thing. Going camping and fasting alone for 30 days, sleeping in the back of the boat, here watching the sunrise alone, and even in His final hours he asks his closest friends to still pray a little way apart from Him.
This brings to light something for all of us however. Weather, bases on my hasty description, you see your self as either and introvert or an extrovert, we must all benefit from time spent “refilling our tanks.” Even Christ himself did not constantly run at 100% all the time, 7 days a week. Even though he healed on the Sabbath he know exactly what it meant to take a Sabbath Moment. We can find him praying along, being peaceful, waiting, allowing God the time and opportunity to dwell more closely. Even CHRIST, who was God incarnate, allowed time out of a ministry that was the most important in history and one that he KNEW was only going to last 3 years, even SO, he still carved out the time to be only with his Master and Creator.
Every person here has been weary. Every one of us has been weak when we most needed to be strong. Scripture states so truly and so rightly that even the young stumble and fall.
Yet… what does the Bible promise us? If we hope in the Lord, if we let everything ride on God, if we cast every chance we have at prosperity in this life, on Him alone, then we will be RENEWED. Made NEW again. Then it goes on... promising more than being new, we will soar! On wings like eagles. We will run and never tire.
But how? How do we hope in the Lord? What is the activity that does this thing? Many things, a life like Christ. But—we have here today, one, one facet of instruction. Find that quiet place. Watch that sunrise…
That alone can be incredibly difficult. In the world of today we can fell that there are so many different thing pulling us in so many different directions. A moment of peace is all we can get and even then that is asking a lot. Leah and I both have been incredibly blessed to have traveled to Italy. Unfortunately we went in separate college trips, but the other day we were reminiscing about or experiences and one of the things we both missed was busy restaurants. Sounds like a crazy thing to miss from a couple of introverts right? The thing was, neither of us is fluent in Italian. So, in the midst of 60 or 70 animated conversations, all we heard were the lyrical tones of a fairly beautiful language. Something like that is possible I think no matter where we are. By process of mind we can somehow turn of the part of our brain that is absorbing input from the world, let it fade into the white noise of life… and find a kind of surreal peacefulness. I wonder sometimes if Christ didn’t do something exactly like this during parts of his trial with the Sanhedrin in the last hours of his life. Shut them off, let them fade to the background, find peace, and talk with his Father.
In our scripture today he has found peace in the colors God has laid out for him in the early morning. When Simon finally finds Jesus, apparently he didn’t leave a note before going out. They ask him, as any of us might as, “Where in the world have you been!? We’ve been looking for you all morning!” My mom used to get flustered when she lost track of us in Sears Department Store. But Jesus gives his reply, and did you catch this? Not even acknowledging their question! I can almost picture the scene. Simon is puffing up the side of the hill, and breathlessly asks. Jesus is still looking toward the sunrise and simply delivers to Simon and the others the instructions for the next few weeks. Can you hear the subtext in Jesus’ words? We’ve herd them before… “Where have you been?” “We were looking for you!” Come Jesus’ answer, “I have been about my father’s business.”
Like Christ we must find our way to separate ourselves from the worries of the world. No note, no apologies, just communion with God.
We cannot expect ourselves to function without finding those places in life where we feel able to commune with the Almighty. Weather that is a sunrise, a sunset, a gloriously refurbished sanctuary, or a just a step outside on the porch. It doesn’t have to be long, it doesn’t have to be an hour or thirty days, it just has to happen.
The promise of renewal, of energy, of flight that is fancy free is there. Waiting for those who can find that quiet place in the physical realm, or in the mental and spiritual one, but a place that is apart from the world long enough for God to bring solace and instruction on the next piece of our journey.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Kafcoction
Keep in mind here that I am a very non-measuring oriented cook. So, adjust as your tastes deem....
Mince 2-21/2 onions and 4-5 cloves of garlic (not HEADS, cloves)
saute in rendered margarine (or just margarine, rendered mar is just so it won't burn)
saute till near caramelized. Add a little coriander, cumin, salt and pepper, cayenne pepper, and dried chili (I don't know how much, usually I just tap the can and make a circle once around the pan, maybe like 2 or 3 circles for the salt) You may want to go easy on the chili if you are a GIRL (ha haha, kidding) You can also add fresh chilies. There is some contention on this as to whether the dried or the fresh are hotter. I think the dried are, personally. It's up to you really.
Mix in the spice and then add diced red and yellow peppers. Usually like 2 each or so.
These are a little $$ but they add to the sweetness and make the chili look cool.
Just cook these enough to be warm, they will finish in the chili. Mix that up then add either 1-2 cans of diced tomatoes (with the juice) or dice like 4 tomatoes
and throw those in.
Lately at this stage I have also been adding like 1/2 a beer...
Ok, dump that mess into the pot and let that just simmer and be warm on low
In the same skillet, don't wash it out! Dump in the MEAT( 2#s of ground beef, or meat. (one time I also minced bacon and put that in with the meat, added a smoky flavor that was good)) put in a skillet with ... brown that adding a beer when it is about half done and let it finish cooking, don't overcook it or it will be rubbery.
Dump that in and we are halfway there.
Some people like to use dried beans, but they are a pain and you have to soak them overnight-- so I don't use them.
Usually I get a lot of different types of beans. Usually Black, Butter, navy and just one can of the usual kidney beans.
Drain those first, rinse them and then add them to the pot.
I usually add another beer at this point, and then I also sprinkle in some sugar and like 1/4 cup of molasses. If you don't have molasses you can just sprinkle in some brown sugar (replacing the sugar).
Simmer this all together for about 30 minutes and then it should be done.
Goooooood eatin'. This also leaves you like 3 1/2 beers left... can't let that go to waste.
Mince 2-21/2 onions and 4-5 cloves of garlic (not HEADS, cloves)
saute in rendered margarine (or just margarine, rendered mar is just so it won't burn)
saute till near caramelized. Add a little coriander, cumin, salt and pepper, cayenne pepper, and dried chili (I don't know how much, usually I just tap the can and make a circle once around the pan, maybe like 2 or 3 circles for the salt) You may want to go easy on the chili if you are a GIRL (ha haha, kidding) You can also add fresh chilies. There is some contention on this as to whether the dried or the fresh are hotter. I think the dried are, personally. It's up to you really.
Mix in the spice and then add diced red and yellow peppers. Usually like 2 each or so.
These are a little $$ but they add to the sweetness and make the chili look cool.
Just cook these enough to be warm, they will finish in the chili. Mix that up then add either 1-2 cans of diced tomatoes (with the juice) or dice like 4 tomatoes
and throw those in.
Lately at this stage I have also been adding like 1/2 a beer...
Ok, dump that mess into the pot and let that just simmer and be warm on low
In the same skillet, don't wash it out! Dump in the MEAT( 2#s of ground beef, or meat. (one time I also minced bacon and put that in with the meat, added a smoky flavor that was good)) put in a skillet with ... brown that adding a beer when it is about half done and let it finish cooking, don't overcook it or it will be rubbery.
Dump that in and we are halfway there.
Some people like to use dried beans, but they are a pain and you have to soak them overnight-- so I don't use them.
Usually I get a lot of different types of beans. Usually Black, Butter, navy and just one can of the usual kidney beans.
Drain those first, rinse them and then add them to the pot.
I usually add another beer at this point, and then I also sprinkle in some sugar and like 1/4 cup of molasses. If you don't have molasses you can just sprinkle in some brown sugar (replacing the sugar).
Simmer this all together for about 30 minutes and then it should be done.
Goooooood eatin'. This also leaves you like 3 1/2 beers left... can't let that go to waste.
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