Crystal Light

Soo... there are these skulls aparently. The history of them is pretty cooky. They belive this one to be made around a thousand years ago, and after it's rough shaping it was further shapped by sand (and human hands) for like 300 years. Bizzare. The lower jaw even moves...

You've got to wonder amout some of this stuff i guess. Mu, lemuria, Nazca stones, all that. I mean, ther could be somethign to it after all. The thing to recall though is that none of these things even if they were true do usurp the power or presence of God. There might be stones that have healing properties, there might be people living under us in a hollow world. It doesn't mean that God isn't still God.

That's the thing i thing people get too hung up on. The start thining that all these crystals and chakras and stuff take the place of God. Why can't God just have created us like that? Or created things and places in this world with a power of their own? I mean, he's God. There isn't anything that is impossible for Him. The only thing that goes wrong is our perception. We think we understand who God is and then we fit Him into this little box. An when anything comes along that isn't already in the box we say, nope, that's not of God! When really it could be. I think we fail to see what all-powerful could really be like...

Beatitude Adjustment

Jerimiah 11:5-10; Luke 6:17-26

In the summer of 2000 I had the opportunity to travel to the Middle East with my uncle, my brother, and cousin with a few people from my uncle’s church. The trip was great, I loved traveling with my brother and seeing the sites with him. We went to a few places in Egypt, also toured around Athens for a day, but most of the trip was centered on Israel and Palestine.

My uncle has spent, well, probably a total of 3 years or so there, over the course of many visits and sabbaticals over his lifetime. Having him with us on the trip was wonderful because, as we were walking through the old city in Jerusalem, he would see old friends from previous trips who would invite us into their shops to share stories over glasses of tea.

In my heart I weep for what has become of the area, personally I think it is a travesty that the Christian church as a whole isn’t more present in the situations, if nothing else to vie for the safety and preservation of the numerous religious sites. I’m not usually a person that puts too much stock in places holding a certain power, or buildings being worth the price of war, but there was absolutely something special about the places there in the “Holy” Land.

We visited Bethlehem, stood on the banks of the Sea of Galilee, and ate fish from that same sea, road a boat across the waters to Capernaum. We went to the garden in Gethsemane, and stood under a living olive tree that could be dated to the time of Christ. We stood on the mountain in Sinai and watched the sun rise. There is a presence, and a spirit to those places.

When I was reading the gospel lesson for today earlier this week, I was reminded that we stood on one of the hills surrounding the sea of Galilee where this famous sermon takes place. It’s a verdant idyllic place. Really, the message is one that is in stark contrast to the surroundings. The 5^th, 6^th and 7^th chapters of Mathew parallel our reading today, and are usually noted to be the “sermon on the mount,” but historically it was really more the sermon to the mount. My uncle showed us while we were there. While we all stood at on the middle and top of the hill, he made his way down to the waters edge. When he turned and spoke to us we were pretty surprised… it was a natural amphitheater. The water at his back and the hill’s rise made for a natural amplification of his voice.

This message was, and still is an enormously shocking passage. It completely turns on its head the values that we are taught by the world. I wonder sometimes where we get these ideas about money, about worth, about what is good in life. We could point to the media, to TV and every other source, constantly re-enforcing in us what is of worth in this world. I mean, Anna Nicole Smith passed away, surely that is cause for trump and pomp? Never mind the others dying in the world, focus on the famous. And why was she famous? For her enormous humanitarian efforts? You see where this is going.

Regardless though of where we get these ideas ingrained, Jesus in the beatitudes is here to turn every single one of them on their heads.

To begin, we must accept that Christ is, as ever, highly concerned with the position of a persons heart, of their soul. So, to that end we must see that the Beatitudes are talking about the poor, hungry and weeping people he is talking about those emotion in the SPIRITUAL sense only. The slums, the physically poor and impoverished and hungry are in no way pleasing to God.

So then, what is it to be poor in spirit? To be poor is to be in utter need. To not have the ability to function without the help of others. Spiritually then we need to understand that we can be utterly helpless before God. More than that though we must realize our lack of superiority in God’s eyes regardless of our station or achievement in this life. No matter the amount of fame, or fortune or power that have been given to us we must understand our helplessness when faced with walking alone in this life. When faced with walking without the Lord at our side.

And look at the warning to the rich! Stern indeed, it says, “Hey! Hope you had a great time while you were here! Cause that’s all you get!” Ego is the enemy here. Which can be created by material wealth, but could happen to any one. Wealth creates attachment to the world and the things in it. The more we have the more we want to keep it and attain even more. Are you saying, well, I’m certainly not rich… Rich could be defined as anyone who has more than they need for monthly expenses. Apply that to the spiritual life. You think you have more than enough to deal with this world? That’s dangerous thinking. Our job is to continually come to God and say, “I am nothing without you.”

A person who can be poor in spirit approaches life in humility, not as if the world owes us a living, but as though we owe life, and the Life giver our all. We approach life with the intention of contributing all we possibly can to the work of God out of loving appreciation. Then, we can be Blessed.

That’s the other thing I think we should understand about the Beatitudes. This kind of matched up with something we discussed in conformation class this past week; it’s that when Jesus says that these are the types of people who are blessed and these are the types that are not – he isn’t really doling out a punishment. Jesus doesn’t talk about God as if he is setting out these rules so that he can catch us in our failure and go, “Nyah Nyah! You screwed up! SMITE SMITE SMITE!” Jesus tells us instead the path that we can take in order to dwell in God’s blessing that he has already set out for us. As if the blessing was the best cut of meat, the finest steak. And Jesus knows just where to cut, just how to cook it so that it melts away in your mouth. It’s our choice weather or not to listen. And if we don’t, well. We get the gristle or life, something that is cooked into tasteless grey oblivion. Gross. That lump of meat wasn’t sent to us as punishment, it was the consequence of our inability to cook it the way Jesus told us.

Now the warning to the full is stern indeed. The full are the opposite of the hungry. The full are the ones who fill up on everything that the world has to offer, and therefore full of their own desires, their own cravings. If we did that we would have no room left for the Lord’s righteousness! In a way this is saying that if we are satisfied with the way the world is then we need to take another look at our hearts. If we go through life and say, “There’s not really much I wished would change,” then we could be in trouble. But if we instead live a life that says, “This is not right. This isn’t what the Lord wants for His family.” Then that is the life that is hungry for more, for something better that we know God and his Will can provide. Romans 1:29-31 is very explicit in pointing out what things the ones who do not hunger are filled with: “full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, and ruthless.” Past that, Paul goes on to say that even by approving of those who do those things we are just as guilty. Look at that list and watch any of 100 sitcoms available to us. “Be hungry for better things,” says Christ.

The last of the trio (which is what the beatitudes from Matthew get pared down into) is about weeping and laughing. And again, remember that Jesus is talking about spiritual weeping, or a weeping of the heart. I have no doubt in my mind that Jesus laughed regularly with his friends and followers, and under no account expects us not to enjoy our time here on earth. In a spoof on the church I saw it was said that “Christians aren’t allowed to have any fun, unless you are laughing at how dumb the devil is.” Spiritual weeping though is a weeping at our own sense of sin. The people who laugh are those who have no sorrow or regret over evil and suffering. Which sounds unbelievable when you say it but if we each think back I’m sure we could remember a time when we were guilty of this. It’s a time in which we put our pleasure ahead of the suffering of someone else. Allowing ourselves to be at ease while someone close suffers. It could even be the feeling of well being when we think that someone else gets “just what they deserve.” That’s not the calling that we have from Christ.

Look at Luke 18:13 sometime. “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'” That is weeping. That is crying out to God in full understand of the sin that should rest on our shoulders. And the reward promised is so great! The word used for joy in Greek is gel’asete -- which implies loud laughing and deep joy; seeing the end of sin and the shame that goes with it.

Jesus goes on to warn us that if we are living it up on the earth, then we are no better than the false prophets. The world tells us that we need esteem. We need position and place and honor and praise. We need applause. We speak well of the people that attain these things. Christ though says that the world speaks well of false prophets. He tells us that people will hate us and won’t have anything to do with us. He says people will insult us and say cruel things about us. And that these things should all make us happy! The CEV translation actually says, “Jump for Joy!” Because our reward is in the next kingdom.

Jeremiah is dealing with people of the world. People like any of us from time to time I would imagine. People that look at that life of suffering and say, you know what, heavenly reward might be great someday, but how about a little less insults thrown at us, and a little more with the happiness? Jeremiah gets a little note from God about that kind of thinking right? Cursed! God says. Suffering every curse that goes with that kind of action. A curse that we ourselves bring on us. Not to get too entrenched in Anna Nichole’s life this morning, but her son is a great example of the curse. Here was a young guy, good looking kid right? Had financial assets most of us couldn’t imagine. Had notoriety, mobility, could travel, do basically all he wanted in life. And how did he die? A prescription medication foul-up, but he was on three kind of anti-depressants and mood stabilizers. What in the world was he depressed about? Sadly his whole life had been constructed around the world. According to the world, that kid was a success, and really so was his mother. Fame, money, big house, notoriety, they lacked for nothing… and yet, tragedy.

So we live with this curse hanging over our heads. Bear the fruit of the world and bitterness will follow. What’s the way out? Christ. Our salvation. And even in Jeremiah God reminds us that he is the God of salvation by reminding his children of their exodus from Egypt. It is in God’s core heart to save his children. And so the Christ. And look at how the language of the Bible defines itself here. In Deuteronomy 21 it says “If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse…” Christ was cursed. To be specific he became the curse and broke the curse by hanging on the cross and by breaking death three days later. That’s our glory on earth. That’s our exit, that’s the source of our joy, enough to jump for it. There is a present joy that is possible. A peace and a wonderfulness of purpose that comes with following God’s will. That’s the little peace of the kingdom on earth we get to glimpse, and even that taste is so sweet it makes us wonder what the meal will be like.

So let the world rail at us. Let the people at work and at school say that they don’t understand, let them call us names behind our backs for not valuing the things of the world. Also cry for them. Let your heart break for them, seek them with love and not haughtiness. We are called to righteousness not self-righteousness. Because if life is hard as a Christian, we know we must be doing something right. And Christ is right here in our suffering and our hunger and our weeping for something better, telling us of the feast he has prepared for all of us on that day in heaven.

No Butts!

Jerimiah 1:4-10; 1Corinthians 13:1-13

Accountability. That was one of the first ideas I went over with our Confirmation class this past week. It’s a powerful word, and once you realize that, can alter your life.

When I was younger I vividly remember being told about the age of “accountability.” I don’t remember the actual words my parents used, but I remember thinking a long time about the idea that my sins were now my own to seek forgiveness over. It was as if childhood had been this great blank slate all along, like I could get away with anything because I was a kid. So much was excusable. But now, well now, there seemed looming in front of me these giants called consequence and effect. Not that I had lived a wild life as a child, but the words my parents used made this time seem all that more real.

This verse from Jeremiah is the ultimate in accountability. Better, I think, than Moses’ calling in the wilderness. I have used this verse as proof to some of the teenagers about how God doesn’t necessarily wait until we are older to give us a calling. True or not, I think our mental images of the prophets are something that resembles Charlton Heston’s portrayal of Moses. Wild white hair, long beards. (Elijah was actually bald) Here we have some proof that the prophets were of all ages, including the young. And, it isn’t some back seat assignment that is given to the prophet Jeremiah either. It becomes his duty to speak out over all the nations, he is appointed by God to give both judgment and blessing on God’s behalf.

In order to teach us, the characters in the Bible must be ones that we can relate to, and they are, if we are able to see them.

Look to Jeremiah. Get down inside his head. What is he trying to do in his argument with the Almighty? “Ah, Sovereign Lord, I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.” I would bet money that every parent or aunt or uncle in the room has heard this line before. Maybe I tried to use it for something I did shortly after my parent’s told me I now had to be accountable.

“But I’m just a little kid!” this says. You can’t take away my allowance, I’m just a little kid! You can make me do the dishes, I’m just a little kid!

These are the lines our very young people use when they don’t want to be held responsible. And we all might say something similar for the same reason. Too much to handle? I’m too young, I don’t know enough, I can’t, I’m tired, I’m bored, I need to use the bathroom…

And like any good parent, God responds to this with, “Don’t give me that.” He replies to Jeremiah, “Don’t feed me that ‘I’m just a little kid’ stuff.”

The call of God is irrefutable. Jeremiah found that out. So did Jonah, so did Moses, so did Noah, so did every single one of the prophets and people of God, whom He uses to do His will on earth. You might be able to fight city hall in this day and age, but you still can’t fight God. If he wants you to serve Him, it’s inevitable!

And the news is that he wants every single one of us to serve. That’s partly what Christ’s charge to us is all about. The Age of Prophets has lessened to a degree in this day and age to make way for the Age of Disciples.

The spiritual gifts that Paul mentions to the church in Corinth are a divvying up of prophetical powers. The church body now becomes the prophet of Christ to the world at large. We all have a call that is inevitable and inescapable. Yet, what is our first reaction? Look back at our confession this morning… We try to bargain with God. We think God doesn’t really know what is going on in our lives. We think that call is unfair to the way things “really” are down here. We try to tell God how it is. But Lord, (and sometimes like Jeremiah we even preface our But with a huge honorific), great and powerful God, you don’t know how busy I am. But, you don’t understand how hard it is for me. But, you don’t get just how hard he/she is to deal with. And to all that, God says, “Suck it up.”

That’s what my camp counselor used to say to us when he would take us hiking and we would complain endlessly about bugs, our feet, the humidity of the air, our feet, the bugs… Tough it out, suck it up, I don’t want to hear it.

One the trail he said those things because he knew we could take it. We were just whining. And he knew the payoff was worth it; awesome vistas, cool streams to swim in, strength in our bodies.

Just so with God. He never leads us to a place that is harmful, and just as he tells Jeremiah not to give him any lip, and that he is going to do what God commands that he do, he gives Jeremiah comfort.

The LORD reaches out to him, touches him, and gives him the words before he gives him the full charge over the nations. God will always reach out to us; he will always touch us in comfort and fill us with the power we need to do the job he wants for us to do.

Look back further in the reading and you find more of God’s comfort.

God says that He knew Jeremiah before he was formed in the womb. And this isn’t just a regular, I know you’re there, kind of thing. The Hebrew word used there is yah-da, and it means far, far more than a simple knowledge. This is the same word used for intimacy between husband and wife, the same word that talks of prophets as chosen, the same word that means protection. This word denotes such a close personal kinship, such a deep, deep intimacy. That is how well God knows us. It is from there that He begins his instructions to us.

That’s why anything we say to refute the will of God’s call to us is nothing but excuses. And God won’t stand for it.

I mentioned before that this is the Age of Disciples, and that as such, we are all called with certain prophetical gifts to do the work of God in the world. We are all ministers of the faith, in that we are each responsible for ad-ministering the will of God to the world. We are called to do it everyday, and in a hundred different ways.

Yet, even with all these gifts there is one ruling discipline that must be followed first. To answer the call that none of us can resist, there is one slice of the divine we must emulate. And that is Love.

Paul is so eloquent here, and only more-so in his original Greek. At the beginning of the passage he is listing some of the more amazing gifts (speaking in tongues, prophecy, moving mountains) and then afterwards remarks that even if he has these, but cannot grasp love, then he has nothing. The way this reads in the Greek however is that not only is the gift meaningless, as implied, but the person themselves becomes meaningless. If you have the power and faith and call to do the most amazing things in this world but cannot do it in the spirit of love, then, not only is your ministry and you answer to God’s call meaningless, but we ourselves become meaningless. Is there any worse fate?

Paul imprints on us the crucial nature of understanding Love. If we let out of church early this very moment, (don’t tell Jesse), went to our homes, rented trucks, gave every single thing we had to the poor, every stick of furniture. Then, went to the hottest jungles in darkest parts of the world and died a martyrs death with a Bible in our hands – YET, could not do these things with Love? Then it was all meaningless. But how? How could we do all those good things…

What if we gave to the poor, only out of duty? Of gave with contempt, because the rest of the church forced us to? Or gave with an air of superiority? Or giving with Rebuke, because, really, the poor ought to make their own way in life. Or giving in a way that was no sacrifice for us? You can believe in God sure. But we can act prideful, arrogant, or super spiritual. We can be cold and distant.

It is not enough to have a good attitude on the surface, or even just a little deeper than that. You have to have Love at the core of every action.

Paul tells us that works alone are not enough. The measure of our hearts is taken into account first.

So what then is love? Paul gives us fifteen answers. I picked out one.

The one answer to the big question I picked out was that “Love (big L), is not easily angered.” I zeroed in on that mainly I think because I used this verse years ago when I was having a real struggle with personal anger.

Now, this can be a tough one. Especially for those with children. It’s hard to think that getting mad at our kids means that we don’t love them or something. However, read carefully and see that he does say not easily angered. The Greek word parox-un-tai lends itself to something more subtle. The word anger here doesn’t only mean a huge raging explosion, but this also means that Love does not easily take offense. It is not supersensitive.

Part of the reason we get angry with one another is because sometimes we assume too quickly that the other person is out to get us.

Someone makes an offhanded comment, and we take it a different way. Immediately our walls go up! We are under attack! Our feelings are hurt and we lash back out! The quills go up, the battlement flag is raised. In a class I took on counseling we had a phrase for misunderstandings which was “one person misheard what the other person misspoke.” We see an injustice to our honor, or our understanding, and hunker down and get ready to fight.

Love, though, takes the hard way. Love steps up and says, did you mean that like this? Love reveals the unprotected underbelly and says, that hurt me just now, and Love responds with apologies and words of comfort.

Paul tells us that Love, suffers the evil done to it, and moreover forgets it. New King James translation says thinks no evil, and the NIV says that Love keeps no record of wrongs. And here we see that Love is true forgiveness. Having a problem with someone and hording it deep down, never telling them, until it comes spilling over in all kinds of other snide ways? That’s not Love. I used to do that a lot. I used to think it was just my way of not letting people bother me, but really I was just pushing it aside. But that wasn’t love. And it ended up sabotaging every one of those relationships.

Hanging on to our anger? That will eat us up from the inside every time.

Like Jeremiah though we say, “But, I like my anger, it’s warm and comforting. It’s a shield; it protects me from getting hurt.”

God has words for that “but” as well. And they are words that we long to hear. Do not be afraid of them. And the “them” in that sentence can be all the people we can’t meet with love, out of fear. Out of fear that they will hurt us first, the fear that they aren’t worthy of the love, the fear that they will meet our love with spite. And that is a fear, a very real one. When we talk about exposing ourselves in Love to someone that wrongs us, that’s about as hard as it can get emotionally.

But God tells us that we don’t need that fear.

He tells us more over that he is with us, and that He will rescue us.

It’s not about what gifts we have, or how good we are at them. Paul tells us that when you get right down to the heart of the matter, we need to be able to treat one another with Love. Most especially here in the church. This is our practice ground for the world out there. We have different rules here. We have warm coffee and snacks and friends and family we care for. And sometimes loving each other here is hard enough! But once we pass through the doors it increases exponentially.

So learn here, in this place, to rely on the protection of God; it’s better than anything that you or I could ever come up with on our own. And if you feel the call of God in your life, respond to it like Samuel – What would you have me do? Because God knows us, so very intimately, like they say, it’s better than we know ourselves. Allow the Lord to reach out to you, to touch you, and when the time arises to rescue you. He knows that the world will not always love us, but He charges us to meet the world with love.

They set us up... the harmless flashing sign

I laughed hard. I laughed so hard.

I'm so sorry. If you live in Boston and you were shaken by this publicity stunt then you are a douche. And a retard. i don't know how many ways i can say it. People please.

Is there any possible way you could see this little sign posted somewhere and think that it was a bomb? What kind of 70 year old grandmothers do they have running the government in Boston. I love the Governor's quote:

"Gov. Deval Patrick issued a statement that thanked law enforcement while chastising Turner Broadcasting: "I am deeply dismayed to learn that many of the devices are a part of a marketing campaign by Turner Broadcasting. This stunt has caused considerable disruption and anxiety in our community. I understand that Turner Broadcasting has purported to apologize for this. I intend nonetheless to consult with the attorney general and other advisors about what recourse we may have.""

I love it. It's like he's saying, "Da bad men scawed me a whole wot. I'm tewing." Boo Hoo Hoo. Disruption in our community. Please! What jack-ass.

I hope all of Boston can see this, cause I'm doing it as hard as I can.