In a one horse open Slay

In this time of Christmas we are reminded as Christians of the place of Christ's birth, that little town in Bethlehem. It still exists in apartheid ruled Palestine. A zionist, not a jewish, government holds the land in a stranglehold even after 50 years of conflict.

For the past half century the people of the people who live in that place that was once the site of the Holiest night have not known the security of peace or the divinity of security and peace.

For the past 50 years people like me have fought and railed and educated, and inevitabley delt with the frustration that comes from fighting a grass roots battle against monetarily endowed giants who feed the ignorance of people the world over.

As in so many situations art has risen to the surface to give voice to the frustration and the anger we all share.
Banksy has just put up a new show in Bethlehem. Check him out if you can.

Grindyerball and Dumblewhore

or, I could make a subtitle: J.K. Rowling is raving jackass.

Seriously folks. Gay Dumbledore? First of all, your seven book is done lady--could you be any more desperate for attention at this point? And second. No. You don't get to go back and add things to characters after the novels have all been released. You want to change the orientation of someone? Then do it in a book. Otherwise you are just spouting shite to get your name in YET ANOTHER news article.
It would be the same as if George Lucas held a press conference and said, "Oh, You know what. Obi Wan and Luke had a little tet-a-tet just before Luke went back to find Uncle Owen and Aunt Baru. I never added that in there, but I meant to." And while Luca is famous for adding things into 4, 5, and 6, there is absolutely no support for that kind of story.
And the same is true here. If he were really a gay character then why isn't there ONE SINGLE MOMENT over the course of SEVEN books that makes us even question his sexuality. If anything the wiz comes off as A-sexual. I mean he's got to be like ninety or something right?
The main point is either a) she's a lying glory hound who delights in making waves and gay is the "hot" topic right now or b) she is such a lousy author that she couldn't manage actually WRITING about a gay character in any of her books.
Take your pick. Either way, what little respect I had for her as a person is toast.

And don't get me wrong. I love the books. I think they are great children's fiction. But over the years I've had less and less respect for her and this is just the icing on the cake. So more or less, I just say balls to her. Either he is gay in the books or he isn't. If she write some OTHER story, revealing that he is homosexual, then fine. Until then, I am going by the books, and sadly for her, the books say nothing about Dumbldore being gay. So... JK is wrong.

The other thing that started getting to me was how before the last book she was always so inanely mysterious about EVERYTHING. "Oh, Miss Rowling, will people eat chocolate in the last book?" "Oh just wait and see! Hur hur hur..." On and On. Please. Give me a freaking break. I really hope she can't come up with anymore stories about anything now. She's written her cannon, it's done, let's all just move on with our lives.

Oh, by the way: Harry is really a pedophile, and Ron was latent in his developlent because he played with his wand. Yeah, it's all true. She just didn't actually WRITE about those things because she is a dirty bastard. Oh the fan fiction...

Choosing Well

Luke 17:11-19
2Timothy 2:8-15

This past week I was watching TV, and came across a show on the Home and Garden channel called Deserving Design. If you haven’t ever heard about it, the show’s host, Vern Yip, takes a deserving family and re-designs two rooms for them. One room they help plan to a certain point and the other is a total surprise for them. The episode I caught focused on a husband and wife who had two little boys, and had been trapped in a money pit of a home. Shortly after buying the place, they found that the sub-flooring--that is the part under the carpet--was rotted. Beyond that, as they pulled back carpet and got a look at it, they found the entire floor was covered in black mold and mildew. Before it was all over they had gutted the entire inside of the house and had to trash most of their furniture.
By the time the show got to them, the husband had managed to get all the sub flooring in, and get the walls back up with new painted drywall. That was it. Somehow they were living in this house with no kitchen sink, no carpet and a love seat. There were NO kitchen cabinets, and certainly no dinning room table. The mother confessed they used paper plates and 2 folding chairs in addition to the loveseat to eat together.
The couple was at the end of their budget, and from what I could tell, the end of their wits.
Being relatively new homebuyers ourselves Leah and I kept cringing at the pictures of mold and rotten walls that were being discovered. We had a great home inspection so we are probably ok, but I could really feel for this guy and his family. Leah asked the question, how could they have bought that house not knowing that it was rotting from the inside? Much less how did they live there for months not knowing about it.

I’ve found though that I can be just like that house. I can have a secret problem or unworthy desire that sits in my insides and festers without my really knowing about it. It takes some work at being able to self analyze and say, “what is my problem!?” These secret sicknesses can eek out in subtle ways that we don’t always expect. We kick the cat for no reason, we wake up grouchy, and we made underhanded comments to people who are friends and neighbors, or family.

My uncle has been sick for a long time. More than six years ago he was diagnosed with polymiocytis which I a big word for muscular virus. It’s something that they don’t really know how to treat, and aren’t sure what the virus looks like or what its habits are. So treatment has been pretty much a nightmare of trial and error. The virus has been slowly degenerative; in fact in 2000 he traveled with us to Palestine and Israel walking with crutches and a cane, where as today he is completely wheelchair bound.
It’s easy to pray for these kinds of illnesses. Something we see, something we can see at work, something that we know is destroying parts of the body. It’s an almost visible, ravenous monster that we can wage war upon with our prayers and actions.
But if you asked my uncle I think he would say that isn’t the worst or most difficult part of the disease. The hardest part for him I think has been the mental anguish, the loss of any merit of control that he once had over life and the direction it took. Whatever plans he may have had for his retirement, I am almost sure the being bedridden wasn’t one of them.

The more invisible assailant, the one that preys on our hearts and spirits is far more insidious than anything that could attack our bodies. They are equally as awful to witness, but consider someone who has a disease of the soul, one that isn’t readily treatable or noticeable.
Yet, very seldom do we find ourselves praying over the spiritual healing of one another. It is even more easily forgotten, because we cannot see the outwards signs. Someone breaks a leg you are reminded of the injury every time you see him or her, but those who deal with sickness of the heart wear no such badge.

In the reading were come back to the familiar story of the ten lepers. They suffer and ask for mercy, and in receiving it are cleansed. Which of the lepers would you say were made well that day? All then were healed? Isn’t then answer ten?
I think the answer is one.

If anyone had been around to witness the miracle that occurred they would have seen the ten lepers getting up, obeying the words of Christ and being healed along the way. But nine of them went on from that day still sick.

The author of the gospel uses different words for the healing that is going on in this passage. Originally when they discover that they were healed he writes the word, “Eeayomai.” Which simply means ‘healed.’ In verse 17 when Jesus is asking where the other nine are, he uses the word “Katharidzo,” which means cleansed.
So here we can see that the lepers found themselves healed, but Christ is recognizing a slightly different action. He states that they have been cleansed.
The third word used is perhaps the most important one. At the end of verse 19 Jesus says the man, “You faith has made you well.” The Greek word for well here is “Sozo,” which also is a word used for ‘Safe’ and ‘recovered.’

Jesus is the ultimate physician. Sometimes earthly physicians give us a bad taste in our mouths, we rejoice when we find a doctor this is really good, because half they time they seem like a bunch of know-it-alls who really don’t have the time of day for you and your ailments. Leah had a bad experience just this week, so, excuse my taint of bitterness there. But Christ is the perfect Physician. He is the loving and caring ailment healer that we all yearn for when we are ill, and of course his prognosis goes beyond the physical into the spiritual which is where he is really concerned.

Jesus responds to the lepers. Their cries for mercy do not go unanswered. He gives them instruction, without explanation. They follow and out of their obedience and faith come a healing. But what is also happening at that moment is not just a healing of their flesh, but a cleansing; a washing away of all that was malformed within them, which we know by Jesus’ later comment. Then, as a continuation of the healing process one of the men returns to Jesus to worship and praise GOD, whose power he recognizes in Jesus. ONLY then does Jesus pronounce the man well.

When we seek out healing from God for anything, we sometimes miss two things--especially for those matters of the spirit. When someone is healed of a physical ailment, it seems easy to shout and rejoice, but when there is healing of a mental or spiritual problem the joy seems more subdued, if at all present. First, we miss the return in thanksgiving to God.
Beyond that we miss the fact that after the healing is done we are WELL. Not just healed, not just cleansed, but well. Which, in the Greek form, means that we are SAVED. We have RECOVERED completely from the thing that was plaguing our hearts. We are safe. We are vaccinated against it.

If we fail to recognize the source of the healing and accept wellness we are doomed to repeat behavior. Accepting the wellness is like being able to understand that we don’t need to act that was ever again. We are safe from the behavior. We have recovered from performing that action.
That is what is really means to be cleansed and made well.

Husbands and wives argue about the same things over and over. Heck, brothers and sister, and aunts and uncles, we all do it with each other. When we argue about the same things, or say the same things over and over to one another, there are two reasons. Either, we feel our real story, or what we REALLY want the other person to hear hasn’t been heard, or we are failing to accept healing over it—which is an integral part of the process.

Jesus wasn’t after the healing in the men’s flesh; he was after the recognition of Himself as savior. The one who made you safe. The one who has the power to make you well. And there was only ONE who was able to receive that wellness.

We have rot on the inside that we cant’ always see. Just like that poor house on TV there is mold in our sub flooring just waiting for someone to step in the wrong place and come crashing down.

I wonder what kinds of molds brother Timothy was suffering through when Paul wrote to him this letter. What period of his life was Paul reaching out to touch. Even this small passage seemed wrought with passion and an uplifting spirit. “Keep your mind on Jesus!” Paul says, with a heartening voice of encouragement.
There is always something powerful in someone who is worse off than us teaching us a lesson in being joyful and thankful for the blessings that are present. I’ve seen it hundreds of times on mission trips. Old and young alike look to the poverty in which we are usually working and you can see the gears of thankfulness begin to turn in their heads. The most meaningful saints on these trips are the ones who have the least and still rejoice in what they have been given from God.
Paul does the same here. Reminding Timothy that even though he sits in jail, treated as a criminal he is willing to endure it joyfully because of the greater prize. The pains and discomforts of the body could not compare with the health in his spirit.
That is how we die in Christ. We find blessing and contentment in the things that matter. We concern ourselves with the health of the sub-floor and the foundation, and not so much on the brickwork found on the façade.

The complete cycle of wellness from Christ does not end with the healing. Healing merely opens the path for us to return. The cleansing is only half the mission in our relationship with Christ. We are meant to go back at that point to the master, and recognize him. We are meant to see him as the source of our true healing and to give thanks in a glad spirit for it. Because only then will we have the blessing of the Christ to go. Only then do we have the USDA GRADE A stamped on our foreheads, only then are we truly well.

If we attempt ministry as unwell people, then we are met with frustration. If we try love as unwell people, then we are met with distortion. If we try to build faith as unwell people we are met with dissension.

To begin the healing of our hearts we must cry mercy to the Lord, we must seek out his voice, and see him as the healer. We must follow the instruction that he places on our heart until we see the cleansing. And then we must return to him, bow at the feet and give credit to the God who provided the cleansing through grace. Only after we have then received the full measure of wellness can we begin to embark on what is to come.

So as we are cleansed, return to the feet. As we are healed, kneel before Him that gave us grace, and look up, wait for that pronouncement of wholeness in your spirit and be ready to get up, and go into the work he has set aside for each of us.

Who Needs Math? No You're Never gonna Get it...

Philemon 1-21

Luke 14:25-33

One of my degrees in undergraduate studies is in Sociology. Being a Bachelor’s Degree we never got very far into specific fields, and so took a lot of different classes as far as the different schools of Sociology went.

I did take the extra electives in Criminology however. It cost me a little extra time but it was worth it really. I was absolutely fascinated by it. And, as a perk the advanced class was allowed to take a trip to Moundsville penitentiary. This place is semi-famous if you have ever seen “The Night of the Hunter” with Robert Mitchum, and even more recently it aired in an episode of “Ghost Hunters” on the Sci-Fi channel. It’s really a pretty intimidating place.

Our visit started out as a lark really, but once you arrive at the façade of that imposing Gothic structure you get an immediate sense of seriousness. Even our troupe of giddy sociology majors took on a tone of abrupt silence as we walked through the first gate.

We received the full tour that day. We even sat in one of the small cells, and laid hands on the bars. We even took a short walk over to the prison coal mine that, in its day, was a hand operated shaft mine worked on by the inmates.

Thinking about this experience still brought a little shiver to me as I was reading Paul’s letter to Philemon this week. It may have been that he starts the letter out with “From Paul, who is in jail…” From what I understand Roman run prisons were no picnic either.

There is an ancient prison still around in Rome if you ever get the chance. It’s called the Mamertine Prison, and as it was built in the 300s B.C. it is the popularized incarceration point of Paul and Peter. Sallust, a Roman writer of around 40 B.C. (within a generation or so of Paul and Peter), describes it as being “about twelve feet deep, closed all round by strong walls and a stone vault. Its aspect is repugnant and fearsome from its neglect, darkness, and stench.” Sounds pleasant.

I really have to admire Paul’s tone in the letter after reading that. He’s talking about how dear everyone is and how the ministry of those on the outside encourages him. But, then again, maybe incarceration is making these joys easier to see.

Paul’s real purpose in all this is to ask something of Philemon. Who, as we understand it is a leader of the church in Colossae, in what is now the middle of Turkey. Paul wants him to take back his slave. His slave, who apparently ran away, and from the letter, probably stole from Philemon and who knows whom else. And more than take back, Paul isn’t returning him as a slave but as an equal in Christ. And more than that he wants Philemon to do it as an act of real love and kindness and not something that he is begrudgingly accepting. For a guy writing from prison he sure expects a lot out of people.

Let’s get some more of Onesimus’s story though. I mean, who knows how he met Paul, either by fate, or perhaps he ran away to travel with him, but regardless he lands in the same place and through Paul’s witnessing he has that precious conversion experience. Paul, now having also befriended Onesimus is confident enough in him to send him out to minister on his own, and admits to not wanting him to go because he is such a comfort to Paul. Paul is actively healing the gap between master and slave before our eyes. He begs, he cajoles, and he even tries a little guilt to get Philemon to agree.

In a line that makes Paul’s poor eyesight known to us he write that he will pay back whatever is owed by Onesimus, writes it in the large letters of his own hand.

If I was Philemon I’m not sure I would be too keen on taking Onesimus back. There’s a little hubris in all of us that initially wants to reject those who walk out on us. But hopefully Paul’s poignant joke stuck in his head long enough to have him reconsider.

Oh, did you miss the joke? Well you have to speak Greek to get it, and without the dictionary I would have skipped it as well.

The joke is in Onesimus’ name partly. The name literally means “useful.”

And so, in the letter when Paul is saying that before Onesimus knew Christ he was Useless to Philemon, but now, he is Useful to the both of them for the minister that he could be, there is a certain wry smile in it.

I think it’s funnier if you know Greek.

But the way Paul writes is masterful, much like Jesus’ parables it was a little statement intended to stick out. Maybe hours after reading the letter Philemon is sitting around thinking about Onesimus and the welcome he might receive when suddenly some part of his brain clicks and he gets it… “USE-ful… oh man I get! Ha ha ha ha… Oh that Paul.”

In high school I had a good buddy who lived next to about 400 acres of woodland that we would hike around in all the time. One winter on a warm day there was a creek that was high with snowmelt, and there were five or so dead trees on our side of it. My friend always carried an old machete with him on the hikes and we looked at cutting one down. Without really saying anything I measured out the shadow of one of the trees, and then the shadow of my friend with he was standing there. A few mental calculations and I picked out a tree for him to start working on. After it fell and we worked our way across, my friend commented to me, “Excellent use of trig there.” I was horrified. He stood there smirking because he knew what I was thinking. I hated math. I loathed it. I had only taken trigonometry because I was required to take it, and here I had actually used it in the real world.

We seek to serve God. In that seeking I know there are times in which we believe certain things to be useful and certain things not to be. I’m sure before receiving the letter Philemon was probably grousing about his missing slave. Griping about his usefulness or lack thereof. And he was a leader of the church.

When he received Paul’s letter I’m sure he wanted to say, “Oh Paul, surely not. Surely not him.”

Paul does well in the letter to remind Philemon that he too owes Paul his life for bringing him salvation. He reminds Philemon that he was once a slave as well—a slave to sin and wrongdoing without the grace of Christ. And so have we all been. I identify much more easily with Onesimus than I do with the other characters in this story.

What did Paul say to Onesimus? What was it that cemented their kinship so closely? Surely just the open hearts that a conversion experience brings, but how did Paul empower him to meet his former master on solid and even ground? Did he tell him how to fulfill the promise of his own name?

Jesus was being followed by enormous crowds. Which maybe partly was due to the rumors going around about his making wine and lunch for everyone? I am a little glib about the crowd mentioned here though only because Jesus kinda seems like he is trying to get rid of them.

I mean look at the language he uses. Well, first he turns, and I have this weird image in my head for some reason of a Jesus who is walking around, maybe easily at first in the countryside, and as more and more people keep filling up the crown behind he walks a little faster, and a little faster until he spins around and tells them what is what.

Maybe he knows that in their hearts they aren’t ready to really follow him. Maybe he knows that they really are following him to see something cool happen.

Regardless though the scripture says he turns, and wow. Unloads with both barrels of the shotgun. He says that in order to be a disciple, that is a student of His, you must love Him more than anyone else in your family. And moreover, you can’t even come with Him unless you love Him more than you love your own life.

Do you think that the crowd thinned out a little at this point?

Of course this is a great point. One that we struggle with daily probably. We must not have anything, or anyone else ahead of the place that God has in our hearts. The motives of the family cannot interfere with the directions that we have from God. The emotional pull of the family cannot overcome the emotional blessing of God. And if the family can’t even compete, you can imagine the place the rest of the world has.

Jesus is talking about preparedness. We’re at chapter 14 here and more than halfway through the whole book of Luke. He’s got the cross on his mind already and he knows what the life afterward is going to take. He knows the convictions that becoming an apostle is going to take.

And true to form he tells a story about it.

The stories say, how can you start something so huge as a tower, or something so important as the defense of your city and not be prepared for the reality! If you did people will laugh at you! The city will fall, and there will be no achievement. So then, He says, you cannot follow my teachings unless you give up everything of yourself.

And what are our great projects? How can we raise a family if we don’t study what God wants for us? How can we be a good friend if the Spirit doesn’t lead us in our actions? How can we possibly be a follower of Christ or his teachings if we don’t know or aren’t prepared to deal with the consequences? We cannot.

Jesus wants followers who are going to be useful. And not just useful in the ways that we think we ought to be useful. We think that we have found our niche at times. We think we have the purpose of God all planned out. But God’s purpose for us can change. His gifts can be altered. We may have hidden talents we didn’t yet know we had. Something God had been saving up for a rainy day. And if we don’t constantly keep up with the Will that God has for us, well, then we are salt that’s lost its flavor. We cease being useful. And sometimes we keep plodding away at the same old thing and wonder, gee, why aren’t I as effective as I used to be?

The power of Christ changed a slave into a free Disciple. Onesimus didn’t tell Paul, “no, no, I’m a slave. Maybe I should just try to be a really good slave instead of taking al l the responsibility of being free.”

We need convincing sometimes like Philemon. We think we have a good handle on things. We keep thinking that we have finally got it. We read a passage of scripture and we say that it means this, and this. And true scripture is irrefutable, but we must be aware of the Words the Spirit has for us through that scripture.

There is an oriental proverb of a monk who sits on the end of a road taking the toll for a bridge. He gets bored one day and asks a man crossing the bridge what he saw something down the hill, and the man replies, “Two women doing laundry and a cow standing in a field, and a troop of soldiers.” A while later he asks the same to a boy coming the same direction. The boy replies, “I say a boy and a girl with a kite, which had a long tail and was red like a dragonfly.” The monk is puzzled and asks if he didn’t see the soldiers or the cow or the women washing? “Oh yes,” says the boy, “but they were very ordinary.”

God has different things to show us on the path at different times in our lives. If we cease looking around for things that have changed then we run the risk of becoming useless.

Is this part of what Paul told Onesimus? Surely he spoke as Jesus did of the self-denial and the dedication that becoming and apostle would take. And coming from a group of guys who were imprison for their conviction I’d say that was probably a pretty weighty idea. Nothing like trying to recruit followers while incarcerated for that very belief. “Hey, want to be a Christian?” “Sure! By the way, what are you in for?” “Being a Christian.” “Really… Well, on second thought…”

What Paul said must have overpowered all of that kind of thinking. “Onesimus,” he said, “fulfill your namesake in a way you never thought possible. Become useful to God himself as a part of His wonderful plan of Love and Salvation for this world.” Yeah! All right Paul! He should recruit for the Armed Forces! That guy could sell a furnace to the devil.

And that is a wonderful task with which we are charged. To be useful in the grand design. How many of us long to have purpose? To have a part to play and here is a loving God who has that part. And it’s not just any part, there are no bit or backstage roles to play in God’s plan, each is integral and wonderful in its own way, and by being useful we find ourselves reaping the blessing that God has promised. It’s like part of the acting contract we have.

So as we go out, trying to find our way to be useful to Christ, we must be ready for some cross carrying, be ready to let the personal wants slough off us, and be ready to release those personal issues that stand in our way.

Christ will give us the courage to know what we HAVE to do in our lives to be useful, but the true disciple is one who can do it because of Love. Love like someone who was once in Jail for Christ.

Flight of the freakin Awesome...

I never liked their stand-up that much, but the HBO show is really great... some favorite lyrics...

Foux Da Fa Fa

J: Je voudrais une croissant
J: Je suis enchante
J: Ou est le bibliotheque?
J: Voila mon passport
J: Ah, Gerard Depardieu
B + J:Un baguette, ah ha ha, oh oh oh oh
B: Ba Ba ba-ba Bow!
B: Foux da fa fa
Foux da fa fa fa fa
Foux da fa fa
Ah ee ah
B: Foux da fa fa
Foux da fa fa fa fa
Foux da fa fa
Ah ee ah
B: Et maintenant le voyage a la supermarche!
B: Le pamplemousse (grapefruit)
B: Ananas (pineapple)
B: Jus d’orange
B: Boeuf
B: Soup du jour
B: Le camembert
B: Jacque Cousteau
B: Baguettte
J: Mais oui
J: Bon jour
F: Bon jour
J: Bon jour
F: Bon jour, monsieur
J: Bonjour mon petit bureau de change
B: Ca va?
L: Ca va.
B: Ca va?
L: Ca va.
B: Voila – le conversation a la parc.
B: Ou est le livre?
J: A la bibliotheque
B: Et le musique dance?
J: Et le discotheque.
B: Et le discotheque
J: C’est ci, baby!
J: Un, deux, trois, quatre
B: Ba ba ba-ba bow!
All: Foux da fa fa
Foux da fa fa fa fa
Foux da fa fa
Ah ee ah
Foux da fa fa
Foux da fa fa fa fa
Foux da fa fa
Ah ee ah
F: Ou est le piscine?
J: Pardon moi?
F: Ou’est le piscine?
J: ...Uh...
F: Splish splash
J: ...Uh...
F: Eh...
J: Je ne comprends pas.
F: Parlez-vous le francais?
J: Eh?
F: Eh? Parlez-vous le francais?
J: Uh ....No.
F: Hmmm.
B: Foux da fa fa
Foux da fa fa fa fa
Foux da fa fa
Ah ee ah
Ba ba ba-ba bow!

YouTube... Wach It!

Frodo -- Just the Rap

BRET AND JEMAINE
Yo Frodo, what you doin' wearing the ring?
All powerful jewelry, is that your new thing?
I know it's hard when you're little more than 3 foot 4
Your little ass so close to the floor.
Trying to lead the fellows to the gates of Mordor
The Fellowship!
(Yea the fellowship)
I don't rap about bitches and hos,
I rap about witches and trolls,
just passing on the words of the Elven king,
Wisdom to all
Frodo! Don't wear the ring!

You Tube

Hot Lips

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Luke 12:10-17

Jeremiah had a rough time of it. He begins his ministry at the ripe old age of thirteen. As a cause of that there are a lot of youth pastors out there who use the calling of Jeremiah as a jumping off point to inspire young people to take the call of the Lord seriously, and to not take lightly the ministries that they can undertake as young people. And that is a great use of the verse. But it only works if you go no further into the book of Jeremiah. The beginning of the story is great. It begins in jolly old Anathoth where Jeremiah has just come of age and is under the priesthood there, and he receives this special calling, one that the Lord validates and supports. But the later God tells Jeremiah that no one is going to listen to his prophecies. For this reason Jeremiah is known as the broken hearted prophet. His portrait in the Sistine Chapel ceiling is one of stricken grief: Jeremiah sitting with his hand over his mouth, sunken eyes turned down, shoulders slumped.

He does of course do some good. He works with King Josiah for a good long while trying to put the faith of the Jewish nation back in order. But then he starts seeing invasion from the North and the successors to Josiah’s throne don’t want to hear about it. He greets the second Babylonian invasion from the comfort of Jerusalem’s prison.

You have to wonder if, at the end of his life, Jeremiah looked back over it all and thought, “Did I do any good?”

It makes me think of what our goals are in ministry. And, by ministry I mean both the huge over reaching ministry of the Church as a whole and our own private callings in everyday life.

Our callings can come in a wide variety of ways. From a simple tug to do something, to hearing actual voices of instruction. And there are no rules that you get Big callings for Big ministries. One of the greatest ministries I know is a friend of mine that serves in a small Palestinian town. He went there to be the priest as a stopgap measure while they found a more permanent replacement and to date he has been there almost 40 years.

I wonder what Jeremiah thought of when he was called. To be called at a young age we might think that he had all the optimism that comes with youthful endeavors. He has the God given words within him now. He has the power. And yet we look at him later in life and he is lamenting the moral degradation of Jerusalem. In chapter 5 he writes poetry sharing his utter disappointment with the people and her leaders. Jeremiah is the prophet that gets so fed up with things that resorts to brass demonstrations. He wears an ox yoke around his neck walking around the town trying to remind people that they should be tied to the Lord’s purpose. He was willing to do anything to get people to hear the message that he fully believed and knew in his heart.

I’ve been like Jeremiah. Not necessarily have I had my lips touched by the hand of God, but I have felt that desperation in ministry. And I want you to understand that I felt it long before I ever actually started working in the church. I felt it in regard to my ministry and calling as a layperson. I’m sure you all have felt it as well. And I’ve been like Jeremiah and lamented to God, I’ve called out for just ONE good person in a city. I’ve also been angry like Jeremiah. Jeremiah not only rails at his people, but he also cries out at God. There have been times in life when I have been good and angry with God. I know God can take it. I will strike a bet to say that we have all been like Jeremiah.

A lot of the time we do a lot of celebrating as a Christian community, and that is great, but we have to be able to know and bear that there are a host of other feelings that get into the mix when trying to live the life of Christ. I we do nothing but talk about all the wonderful things about being a Christian we tend to think that the other emotions involved are something to be hidden away or suppressed.

That’s why I like the book of Jeremiah. Here was a prophet that served for 40 years and ran the gamut of human emotion. He goes from spunky fresh and excited, to buckle down hard working revivalist, to prophesying outcast, to lamenting angry thunderhead. And it was all ok. It was ok to feel like that. Because through all that Jeremiah keeps the faith. He rails and cries and rips his clothes, but through all of that he is in prayer. He prays angry, he prays sad, and he prays when he is just about ready to give up. He stays in constant communication with his God. He never looses site of where he belongs. (Dumbledore’s Man) That’s loyalty for you.

That kind of loyalty is what Jesus is talking about in the Gospel lesson.

It’s easy to get hung up on this verse. Just the idea of an unforgivable sin doesn’t seem to ring right with what the rest of Christ’s teachings say about forgiveness and what Paul teaches about Grace. The real point of Jesus’ comparison though is this; you can’t be forgiven if you can’t accept the forgiveness.

Forgiveness is an opening of the door. An extending of the bridge across the moat. What has to happen for there to be real forgiveness is for the forgivee to accept what the forgiver is doing.

Say you bash someone’s TV. And you pay for it, and they say that it’s all right and all is forgiven. But you go on paying them for it, and apologizing, and feeling horrible for doing it. Have you been forgiven?

The same thing is going on here. Jesus is simply saying that anything is forgivable. Even cursing Christ Himself is forgivable. But the Holy Spirit, the representation of God, is what is giving the forgiveness. So, if we in our hearts set our minds and life against God, then there can be no forgiveness because we are refusing to accept it. It is our setting our hearts against God that causes us to live an un-forgiven life.

So often this is what happens when times get REALLY tough. Not just stressful, but, hey, I’ve been abandon by God feelings.

Jesus’ very next words speak to this. He talks to us about loyalty in times of trouble. In times of persecution (and remember these are the Jews living under the Romans that he is talking to, they KNOW persecution), but he says not to fear persecution or trials.

He says that the Spirit will give power to those who are the friend of the Lord, and moreover give them strength to bear and words to speak. And this is counting the times of the mildest ridicule to full on martyrdom.

This is what the life of Jeremiah was a witness to. This awesome ideal is what he tasted and fought to hold on to his entire life. This knowledge that God CAN be trusted in the hour of trial. Or the week or the month or the year of trial.

Jeremiah is a real live human being with all our passions and questions and needs. His struggles and pains are clearly evident in his ministry and through that all he keeps in tune with the knowledge that God’s hand has not left his lips. That His presence has not left his side.

And Christ promises the same to us.

And how did Jeremiah keep this vigilance? Through constant prayer. Through down-time with the almighty. Through his awesome Honesty with God! He knew full well that nothing was hidden from God and so daily brought all his gripes and complaints right out there along side of his Joys and thanksgivings. Cause God KNOWS. There wouldn’t be all these promises of aid in times of need if God didn’t expect us to struggle with things all the time! We don’t get demerits in the heavenly book for not keeping our composure drawn up around us in a façade of what we think a good Christian is like.

I have a feeling I know what Jeremiah thought at the end of his life. Looking back at what, to some, might be a kind of failure – it did after all end with the exile of his people—but I think he looked back and was pleased. Because he knew his whole life what was going on, but he knew that the most important thing was for him to be close to God and to do the ministries that he called him to do. And he did it with real emotion and real struggle and real dependence on God.

Jeremiah is not a man of iron. He is a man of emotion and empathy. He cries out because he feels what the people could be. He cries out because he knows the amazing and fulfilling purpose that comes with the True Life God calls us to. And in the midst of these emotions and turbulence he continues to pray and preach to God’s people, because of the strength that is supplied to him.

We all have callings in life. They can change, they can be short or long term. Each member of the body has been given gifts and a call in which to use them.

So, whatever that ministry call is in your life take a note from the life of Jeremiah and while you fulfill that call make it real and earnest. Stand on the promise that God is able and willing to handle our emotion, that He wants us to be real with him before we are perfect before him, and that He can be trusted in our trials.

God can never promise us the life of a perfect Christian, but he can and does promise to attend to us and our needs at every step along the way. And I’ll take that over trying to be perfect any day.

Illustration Friday -- Captain

avast ye! Ha. We all secretly want to be pirates...

Illustration Friday

The Earth Will Kick Your Ass

People seem to think that the planet is like this big puppy that we all have on this really short leash. Because we are I dunno, superior, or God-empowered to "subdue" it or whatever. And I don't mean to get on an "inconvenient" soap-box here, but that kind of thinking is really not right.

Think of the planet like a huge slumbering dragon, who is tolerating all our bad behavior, but only for so long. Because eventually the dragon gets tired of it, wakes up, and eats us.

That's the thing I've always said. People talk about saving the planet, and what we really need to do is save the people. The planet will be fine. Nuclear Holocaust, biochemical plagues, fire, brimstone, whatever. The planet will eventually rekindle (say, give or take a 10,ooo years.) The human beings are going to be the ones who are toast.

That's why i find it utterly hilarious when the earth fights back in small spurts. These are like the grumblings of the dragon. When it rolls over in its sleep and crushes a few houses. Or when, say, millions of rats flee flooding in overdeveloped parts of the world and come tearing through the farmland causing devastation to crops and disease.
Or when, for instance, the ocean currents suddenly change because their temperature has differentiated, and the ocean returns millions of tons of garbage to our beaches that we had dumped into the sea.
That stuff is great. We need more of it. Somehow I think that is the only thing getting through to some people to say... hmmm. Maybe we should really do something before we wipe ourselves completely off the face of the earth. Cause that's the effect of all this. Don't worry about the earth. It's a tough planet. Humans though? We are fragile. And there are a lot of us to feed. And we panic easily. Worry about us. Save the Humans.

Easy Rider

Luke 10
Galatians 6

One of my good friends had a great grandfather in his family who was a circuit rider. His father still keeps his original saddlebags in excellent condition on display in the living room. His father ended up being a Methodist minister as well oddly enough, so the bags were of special significance.

A circuit rider was the original American Missionary. During the 1800’s, they travel on horseback a path that took them from small town to small town, and in most cases traveled routes that would take them nearly two months to complete. They took the words Luke to heart, taking only what they could carry in a pair of saddlebags as their only worldly possessions. In our society such simplicity of living seems almost unreal.

They led lives of hardship as Peter Cartwright describes auto biographically; “A Methodist preacher, when he felt that God had called him to preach, instead of hunting up a college or Biblical Institute, hunted up a hardy pony, and some traveling apparatus, and with his library always at hand, namely, a Bible, Hymn book, and Discipline, he started, and with a text that never wore out nor grew stale, he cried, 'Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.' In this way he went through storms of wind, hail, snow, and rain; climbed hills and mountains, traversed valleys, plunged through swamps, swollen streams, lay out all night, wet, weary, and hungry, held his horse by the bridle all night, or tied him to a limb, slept with his saddle blanket for a bed, his saddle-bags for a pillow. Often he slept in dirty cabins, ate roasting ears for bread, drank butter-milk for coffee; took deer or bear meat, or wild turkey, for breakfast, dinner, and supper. This was old-fashioned Methodist preacher fare and fortune.”

It was a hard calling to be that kind of preacher, and still is. In a lot of little Appalachian communities the circuit, or Charge-preacher, is still prevalent. I went to school with a fellow who is now a four-charge preacher, meaning, he has four churches to pastor. Thankfully we are not all called to so hard a life.

Though, sometimes I think we must thrive of difficulty. I was guilty of it so many times in college. Putting off a paper until the last night, as if just writing it wasn’t challenge enough, I needed the added incentive of typing 25 pages in one sitting. There are also times in the spirit however, in which we try to make them harder than they need to be.

One example is in the study of the scripture. I’ve heard students come to me many, many times after having wrestled with certain pieces until it just nearly drives them insane. One of the best pieces of advice I ever read is that, when dealing with scripture, don’t get bogged down. There is a lot going on in almost every one of the passages here, and they are filled with meanings and sometimes social connotations that we just don’t get on the first or second or third or twentieth reading. Instead, we need to allow scripture to be the spiritual beast that it is, and allow it to speak to us. If there is something we might not quite get, there is no shame is setting it aside, letting it rest, and coming back later. Yet, there is some part of us that thinks that if we worked harder at it, thought harder at it we would gain understanding.

There is a story in the lectionary this week about a general in the Ancient Syrian Army. He was used to hardship out on the field. He was used to boot camp, and army rations, and orders that were tough to carry out. The Bible also says that he was used to winning. Now this alone should tell us something about NAY’umun. It tells us a lot about the kind of man that he is. And yet, we can perhaps also imagine the degree to which his leprosy was afflicting him. This is a man who was used to battle wounds and scars and pain that has to go ignored and untreated until the task is finished. And yet, he was so undone by this disease he goes to his King to beg leave to travel down into Israel.

He is granted leave and goes first to the King of Israel, but finds his way to the household of Elisha. He goes there in full pomp, and why not, he has earned his honored rank and title. His chariots and horses go with him and as he comes to the gate of Elisha’s house a servant greets him. The servant gives him a message that if he is to be cured that he should go and wash in the Jordan.

This proved to be too much. Not only was the master of the house not going to meet with him (this is just after he has met with the King remember), he tells him to wash in the Jordan. Which, while it held a lot of significance it was still a river that was used for all kinds of things. NAY’u-mun doesn’t actually come out and say that it’s dirty but I think he implies it as he complains and rails at having to go bath it in.

See, NAY’umun doesn’t want the easy solution. He doesn’t trust it. He thinks it won’t work, that it’s just a waste of time and he is bitter about the trip he took to get there. He is angry with the prophet and angry with himself for being taken in by the idea that his help would come from the Lord.

A knowing servant came and pleaded with him, saying, “What could it hurt?”

But how like all of us is this proud general? How many times in life do we look to the hard road because the easy seems too good to be true? Sometimes the call to personal ministry doesn’t seem difficult enough and so we refuse it or undermine it before we have ever even attempted it.

Christ sent out a call to his Disciples. It’s a simple message. He asks that the disciples bring a message of peace, and the message of His divinity. No enormous messages of intricate faith, no mysteries of the cosmos revealed. Much to their credit they comply with the simple message and meet with success.

Much like the circuit riders of old, what did they have time for but to bring some of the most basic messages to the common folk of the mountains? It’s very hard to run a sermon series on the finer points of living when you only see a particular church once in every six weeks.

Yet there is something heartwarming in coming to grips with the simple message—and the simple charge.

Paul has something here at the beginning of chapter 6 that is also easy in its simplicity. Instruction on how to deal with the common sinner.

Paul knows that the church is Galatia is a trying church and perhaps in their overzelousness to find and perform the will of the Christ, they have been a little too harsh with some of the brothers and sisters who have been tempted and succumbed. So many things being with good intentions and end up spiraling into a witch-hunt, trying to find someone to blame for it all.

Note too that here, no sin is specified. Paul does this purposefully to exercise the point that action for the person does not change according to the sin. It could be the foulest thing imaginable to man or a casual gray and innocent action. The reply should be the same. We are to approach the brother or sister in a spirit of meekness. Never, never, never in the Bible will there be ascribed an action of superiority when dealing with a weaker believer or outright sinner. The spirit of meekness is one that makes us self evaluate before hand and see with our own hearts our nothingness before the cross. Paul specifically asks for this confession in verse 3. We are to be prepared to bear one another’s burdens, and, in verse 5, we are to realize our own responsibility. This last verse seems at odds with the previous verse as far and sharing burdens goes, but it is talking about our own understanding of taking responsibility for our actions in regard to this sinner. If we meet a sinner with condemnation and rebuke then we will have to bear the burden of those consequences.

And is this really asking so much? The only thing that it denies us is the ability to be spiritual bullies. Lording our own righteousness against someone who has yet to find that peace. And maybe we can say that we would never think about doing that, but I might surprise you to say that the majority of the un-churched wholly expect it from us.

But this is an easy thing. To meet those suffering with sin with open humility and a readiness to help them shoulder the burden of their actions. Be ready to visit, to talk, to smile, and weep.

Jesus sends out the disciples into the very homes of people to share the Good Word with them. I know that whenever we have houseguest there is open conversation. A dinner together, a favorite dessert… I know that the disciples who went out, knew and loved those people they stayed with in openness and humility. Jesus says to approach the mission field like lambs to symbolize that meekness.

And what is there reward? What do they reap from these actions? The submission of the evil sprits plaguing those people. Aside from that they returned with a joy in their hearts. That is the power that comes from this easy way of living.

And even now I know there are some of us who are still skeptical. We still say, surely it must take more than that. If I have peace, and give peace, accept who Christ is, meet sinners with humility and a preparedness to shoulder some of the load… the return on that is joy and power over evil in the Name of Christ? There must be more to it, we say.

And so we invent ritual, we make pomp our shield and traditions our armor. We say, there, this enormous laundry list of actions is what is REALLY required of a Godly life. Now this complex belief system, THAT is what it takes. When the reality just isn’t so.

Hopefully somewhere we hear the voice of NAY’umun’s servant. Who whispers and says, “The answer is easy. Why not just try it?”

We have a real call from Christ. In Luke 10 at verse 1 it makes a point of saying there were 70 disciples sent out. That number has a message. It is the same number that Genesis chapter 10 uses to tell us the generation of Noah’s family, the tribes of the world. It is also the number of men who sat on the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews.

In this number Jesus is telling us that the message is to go to the entire world, and that we will have the authority to back that message up.

So we receive this call, to seek the world, not all at once; the idea is to get the understanding that what we have isn’t for the select. It’s for every one of our neighbors and co-workers and friends and family and classmates. Additionally we know that we have the authority to back up the claims we make on Christ’s behalf.

Maybe its about time we did something that was easy. Faith becomes another burden to be checked off the laundry list of items we keep. Jesus says that we should be joyful not because we have power over spirits, but because we have received salvation. That understanding can be very freeing in our lives if we allow it to be. It was meant to be. If we can alter our perception of, even our own church family, so that we don’t see a pasty white school marm with a ruler standing over our heads ready to crack us on the knuckles every time we sin, we’ll be better off. Instead, imagine friendly Paul, sitting in our home, listening patiently to our self-examinations, and our confessions, maybe kindly saying, you know such and such is a wrong way to live, will you let me help you with that? Wouldn’t you feel a lot more like confessing?

Hard work is a definite virtue. But sometimes Christ intends the easy road for us to follow. Our anger and our pride can get in the way of that, but the cleansing that is there for us to receive is worth us letting go of those false gods. Only then can we accept the easy call that Christ has for each of us, the call to go to people, some who will be brothers and sisters in the faith, and some, who will be strangers to God, but people and therefore His Children. But to go to them, and meet them with humility, share their burden, and renew the acceptance of Christ.

That is the kind of easy living that is going to lead us into a life of daily joy and empowerment in the Spirit; that kind of easy living makes the church a stronger place for being able to meet one another with real burden-sharing humility. And more than those, it creates a life that lives actively in the Salvation that God has provided for us.

America!

It seems like in the past few years there have been a lot of, well, let’s say disgruntled people, in our country. There has been the staunch divisions seen and revisited a hundred times. The feelings of unity that the country might have shared at one time seems shattered, and now as the National Holiday approaches I hear whisperings that we don’t have much to celebrate this year.

In places all over the country we hear either the hard-liners, who believe whatever the government says patriotism, and the depressing embarrassment of those who might claim to be Canadian when traveling abroad.

More than a hundred years ago there was written a song that has the power still to bring a tear to those patriots who will really sit and listen to it. “American the Beautiful” was written by Katherine Bates and in 1895 first published by The Congregationalist. Following 9-11 Dan Rather quoted the last verse of the song and nearly burst into tears on air.

It’s a great song, and maybe instead of being overtly proud of the mistakes our country has made, or terribly embarrassed by our grand successes we can all unify and look at the verses for what they are. A message of hope.

Bates was living in the gilded age, but there were tragedy enough even in her time. True she was a Wellesley girl, but she writes in a time in which there have been horrible train wrecks, the Homestead Strike claimed American lives and left families thrown out into the street, Lizzie Borden had been brought to trial just the previous year, and not long before that was the Wounded Knee massacre.

Surely a woman living in such troubled times as these couldn’t have been able to see the beauty in the country around her. And yet she does, with such piercing clarity that a century later we read her words and are taken in by the verse.

In the first verse she relates the physical power that the country has. She wrote this taking a cross country train trip and was inspired by what she saw. And yet, she reminds us that the most beautiful part of the country is the brotherhood we share. The crown of all we have that is good.

The second speaks of pilgrims, but not those who landed on the rock I think. Instead, these are the passionate pilgrims who make a way through the wilderness. The pioneers of action and social view who make plain the path we need to take. And the confirmation is in the self control they must exercise, because the path is not for person gain or liberty, but the Liberty of all the nation’s people.

Verse three reminds us of the heroes that prove their belief and faith in what the country was founded all. All races and all creeds have died for the causes of the nation, and as the songs goes, if they love this country and love mercy more than their own life, then they are truly our most noble children.

And then the fourth. And this is the hardest I think, especially now, having suffered on our native soil, we have come out of our heady belief in our immortality, to see the reality of our fragility. We are no longer un-dimmed by human tears, and yet, this verse’s integrity is in tact.

The last verse begins, speaking about the patriot dream. That is the intangible thing, that goes beyond, that, as she says, sees beyond the years. She talks of Hope.

And that is what makes us beautiful. What makes America Beautiful, is that amazing ability we have to hope. She had it even in 1895, when there were trains exploding and people dying, and massacres, and crazy murders – she still sat on that train and was inspired by her nation, and by the people that dwell in it. She looked at all the squalor and filth and said, “ah, but look what we could do.” And she wrote verse that still strikes to the core of us.

We teach our children in school that the American flag is a symbol. That the colors stand for Courage, for Purity, and for Justice; that might not be quite right. The flag stands for the Hope of those things. The Flag doesn’t promise that beneath its shadow you will, without a doubt, find those things.

Instead the Flag says, “Here are our hopes.” When we are at our best this is what we endeavor to do. This is what we wish for our whole nation. These things above all else. These are the ideals we will fight for, these are the dreams we will instill in our children, and our children’s children.

This holiday I hope that no matter what our political affiliation, no matter who’s man or woman is in the political offices, no matter what our varying stands on all of the turbulent issues at hand right now, we can all take a day to relive the Hope that Bates captures. No matter what you think of the country, put out a flag in pride for what it stands for. Raise it will all your heart behind it with the understanding that we can all stand together on Hope that someday, “beyond the years,” we will look at cities that truly do gleam without corruption or pollution or selfishness and know that the time for our tears is over, and the time for Brotherhood has arrived. Hope with me, and work for that hope, “from sea to shinning sea.”

My Little Butter Cup

My little buttercup has the sweetest smile

Dear little buttercup, wont you stay a while?

Come with me where moonbeams paint the sky,

And you and I might linger, in the sweet by and by

Oh

Dear little buttercup, with your eyes so blue

Ah little buttercup, you’re a dream come true!

You and will settle down in a cottage built for two

Oh

Dear little buttercup I love you

My little butter cup has the sweetest smile

Dear little buttercup, won’t you stay a while?

You and I will settle down in a cottage built for two.

Oh

Dear little buttercup

Sweet little buttercup

My little buttercup

I love you

Boondoks MLK Speech of 2006

..he did what every great leader does when he sees his people are in need. He told them the truth.

“Will you ignorant niggas please shut the hell up!

"Is this it? Is this what I got all those ass-whoopin's for? I had a dream once. It was a dream that all the little black boys and little black girls would drink from the river of prosperity, freed from the thirst of oppression. But low and behold, some four decades later, what have I found but a but a bunch of trifling, shiftless, good-for-nothing niggas. And I know some of you don't want to hear me say that word: it's the ugliest word in the English language. But that is what I see now: Niggas. And you don't want to be a nigga because niggas are living contradictions. Niggas are full of unfulfilled ambitions; Niggas wax and wane, niggas love to complain; Niggas love to hear themselves talk, but hate to explain. Niggas love being another man's judge and jury, niggas procrastinate till it's time to worry. Niggas love to be late, niggas hate to hurry....Black Entertainment Television is the worst thing I’ve every seen in my life!...Usher, Micheal Jackson is not a genre of music!...Now I wanna talk about Soul Trian...I've seen what's around the corner, I've seen what's over the horizon, and I promise you, you niggas have nothing to celebrate. And No I won’t get there with ya, I’m going to Canada. "

MLK: “Thank you Hewey.”

H: “Thank you, Dr. King.”

MLK: “Do what you can.”

Illustration Friday -- Your Paradise

Illustration Friday

Mighty Casey

Romans 5:1-5

John 16:12-15

My father had a habit of making my brother and I memorize poetry. Well, I say that he made us, but after a while we were happy to it, a kind of game between my brother and I—who could remember more of what poems. My dad was a huge Longfellow fan, and both us kids too a shine to it as well, really enjoying sometimes to afternoons in recitation of Paul Revere’s Ride, and the Song of Hiawatha, and the Village Smith. “Under the spreading chestnut tree the village smithy stands. The smith, a mighty man is he with large and sinewy hands; and the muscles on his brawny arms are as strong as iron bands…” That is to say, that we were total poetry nerds.

At this same time, my brother got to be interested in baseball and Dad brought home from school a copy of “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Thayer. Reading it and going to my brother’s T-Ball games really created in my mind a sense of the imagery and of the emotion that come together in the poem. If you’ve never read it, the poem recounts a game, with the home team Mudville down by two and nearly at the end of the innings. Second and third get a man each, and the fans are holding their breath as the mighty Casey steps up to the plate. Here is the savior! The favored Mudville boy to hit the ball out of the park. But he lets two pitches go by, in a vain attempt to drive up the suspense, and then as the third pitch comes we hear in the last stanza of the poem:
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.

It was one of the first poems I read where it ended with such a decidedly sad and unhappy ending. After all, I knew what a defeated crowd looked like from the games we sat through on my brother’s behave (which isn’t commentary on his playing). The poem stuck with my though because the imagery bothered me, why write a poem with a sad ending?

I think now perhaps it was written to reflect the suffering that is going on in reality. After all, the author must have thought; there is a loser in every game. Now too, we have many sufferings that come to us. Not only in the world at large though that is surely enough. More soldiers killed in action, more people destroyed and displaced by war, children trying to get an education gunned down needlessly… In our local community too there is surely suffering, even in our churches and our families.
The face of the human world is well acquainted with suffering.
One of my students at Buffalo commented to me that the prayer list sometimes depressed him because there were so many people on it! Perhaps we don’t do as good a job as we should at keeping the list updated, but it is still a long one.
So, this is our world, and this is our experience from which we operate. And yet, in the lectionary reading for today we hear Paul is telling us that we should rejoice in our sufferings!
Paul might have been crazy. I actually have heard a lot of things about poor Paul, that he was a drug addict, that he was a homosexual, that he wrestled with unbridled lust… It can go on and on. More likely than any of those things is the fact that Paul was a man afflicted with suffering. There are places in the Letters that he talks about not being able to see, and the thorn in his side quite literally could have been a painful scoliosis. Paul knew what suffering was about.
And yet, in his letter to the Romans, he suggests that there is to be found in that suffering a kind of joy. Beyond that he outlines a cyclical journey that suffering can and must take to ultimately lead to hope and therefore joy. Suffering he says, leads to perseverance and perseverance to character and character to hope. I ask again, is Paul crazy?
Paul is obviously a man afflicted. In the Letters we know that the “thorn in his side” was prayed over for removal and relief and yet Paul found none. Rather than doctrine could this message from Paul simply be a way that a godly man has to deal with a persistent pain? How can we trust what Paul is saying? Do we just take it on faith and by proof of his miracles that these words he says now can be included in the Gospel truth? Let’s come back to that in minute.

In our reading from John we hear Christ speaking about the spirit. Last week at Buffalo we had a little celebration of sort in honor of Pentecost, and the birthday of the church of Jesus Christ. This week in the reading we actually go backwards in time to a point where Jesus is getting the apostles ready for that day when the Spirit comes. The First purpose of the Holy Spirit is to be the connection to God that we would have lacked after the death of Christ. It is granted to every believer today only by the salvation we receive through Jesus, but was present in the lives of the prophets before.
Jesus is telling the followers what to expect from the Holy Spirit. It was described as a mighty rushing wind with the appearance of tongues of flame. Probably something pretty mind numbing if you didn’t have at least a little warning of what was to come.
The Second purpose of the Holy Spirit apparently is to continue to reveal truth to us about the nature of God and the nature of his will for us here on earth. In the first line of the reading Jesus says that He actually has more to say to the apostles about the nature of things, but he knows that right now it is more than they can bear. An education in Christianity it seems is like all other forms of education. We must first go through primary school then secondary then collegiate, and so on. It’s the most basic form of our earthly wisdom to know that you have to “walk before you can crawl.” The same applies here. The story of the faith is building upon itself and even though Christ knows that there is more to come, he knows also that the followers just aren’t’ ready for it at that time.

So with this in mind look back to the teachings of Paul in Romans, and even to all the books of the Bible that comes after the Gospel of John. These are the parts of the Bible that have been led and directed by the Spirit. This is the Spirit of Truth in essence using the authors of the later books to reveal more of the Godly truth that was in store for us.
But there is more. We come now into a more full understanding of what the Spirit is, that it is a living essence that demands we too think and live and gain understanding under its guidance. In other words if Paul seems crazy then it is right for us to seek the counsel of the Holy Spirit on the matter. Or see if Paul can be trusted as the spirits representative. And of course Paul is trustworthy. The acts and the conversion of Paul are designed by God to show the believers that he, in fact, does have the hand of the spirit working in his life.
So then we are forced to look at this cycle of joyful pain that Paul describes.
Recently I was visiting my uncle who has been battling a disease for several years. It’s been a slow degeneration of his muscles and for a man who held two black belts in the martial arts it has been a painful process, physically and emotionally. I read this verse to him to see what he thought of it, and gave him my perspective which stems from a more accurate translation of the Greek in the phrase. When we read that word suffering the Greek is actually dokimen. Which could lend itself more to troubling experiences. What I said to my uncle was that they could be counted as Experiences of Trail. He seemed to like that, and find some peace in it.
Our experiences in life will try us, and if we can find the way to persevere, or to come through these trials with a faith in God’s power in tact then we build up a stronger character, we invigor our resolve, we look to a heavenly reward and at the end of that is a renewed Hope. And what is hope, but that wonderful expectation of what God can do. It is an anticipation, a looking and longing for, a desiring and a trusting on the Will of our God.

And know that God does not try us willfully to see if we will survive. But this broken and sinful world can hardly do anything but try us at every turn. That’s the way the game works. Only heaven and Eden were created to be a place of perfection.
Look again now to the end of the reading in Romans. Paul has outlined how to deal with experiences that test us, that seek to weaken our belief and strength in Christ, and now he makes us a promise. Hope will not disappoint you. Look to the Lord with anticipation and trust and you will not be disappointed. God pours out his Love for us. And this is the man who has been met with silence at his constant prayers for healing and the removal of a painful thorn in his life.

So, as we go out and deal with the inevitable trials of experience that the world has in store for us, we can choose to follow Paul’s example. It will never be as simple as making lemonade from lemons, the trials we face will truly test us and push us to the limit. Like the fans in Mudville our grief will be palpable at some points. Yet, with the idea of Hope in our minds we can persevere with the strength of God and the community of faith at our side. We can allow the experience to build us up instead of tearing us down and with a renewed sense of Hope and the promise of God we can be ready to help hold up others who will surely need us.

Even the author of Casey I think had some sense of hope. After all, he says in the first line of the poem that they are playing the game with one inning left to play, which can only mean that even though Casey strike out much to the disappointment of his fans, there is still one more at bat left for the team.

Then when we are faced with the trials of life, remember Paul in the batter’s box, next in the batting lineup, looking forward with hope to that last inning to conquer the visiting team.

BFF

Friendship is an odd thing. There are levels of course and there are degrees and all of that. True friends often are found at the end of grueling tests that come in one form or another. It's as if life is really against you having deep friendships and throws obstacles in your way. "Can you survive THIS?" Obstacles of time and distance sometimes make the difference. But then you have those friends who supersede all of that. People that you form a deep bond with and then, as trials of distance or time come and go, the bonds are still there. It takes only a few tentative moments to re-establish them.

As if when we meet these distant cousins again our spirits wait and say, "Is it still the same? do they care for me? can i still trust them?" All of which are essentially answered in the first few moments together.

Friends are perhaps the most dear relationships we can have on earth. Aside from spouses, which is however, and entirely different relationship. Because, even those with spouses still need close friends, and even must have them I would say in order to continue in a healthy spousal relationship. But the friend, the pure and true, is something that can transcend the confusing morays of sexual tension, and tack closer to the heart of love. Agape? If the spousal relationship is the best expression of Eros, then friendship is--perhaps Philloi would be a better description. Agape, perhaps is for the deepest kinds of friends. In which one could treat the other with undeserved mis-care, and then, years later, want and receive a reconciliation.

There are lots of people out there saying that friends must be of like minds. In fact Amos states as much in 3:3, but is perhaps better fulfilled in Proverbs 27:17--stating that iron sharpens iron. Friends can be different, in fact very different, in fact are sometimes better friends the more different they are! We need to have people that challenge us in a loving way to expand our opinions, to believe new things to take interest in new things. Not to shake the foundations of our understanding with accusation, but to certainly tend to us and ask us to believe differently.

Philloi (Philia) is the key then. That love that must direct our actions the love that resounds within us the idea of caring for this person. Aristotle says in "Nicomedian Ethics" that only the lovable are loved. We tend to think on that the wrong way I think. We think of lovable as pretty or cute, or fuzzy and cuddly, but the scripture can put that into perspective. Proverbs 18:24 says that one who would have friends must show themselves freely, and be willing to stick with people in trouble. Being "lovable" is nothing more than making yourself able to be loved. By being a trustworthy person, by being able to stick it out for your friends, to care for them, and most importantly to be open with ourselves.

People, then, who have shallow friends....

I've spent the weekend with some very dear friends. Friend who accelerated my own Christian journey on the path. From them I learned a great deal about Christ, about His will in this world, and about the inspiring power of His blessings. I've had some friends show their true colors and turn out to be complete bastards, and I've discovered friends where I thought them least likely to appear. Proverbs 11:14 also talks to us about the fact that having counselors and supporters in our lives will ensure our success. How often, when we feel alone, or troubled, do we simply need the kindness of good friends to uplift and support us. And again, as a part of being emotionally available in order to be a friend, we must allow people to hold us and help us.

Jesus' closest friends were people of all types, some got it, some didn't. Some where there at his last moments, some hid in their fear. But all of these friends responded out of committed love for their friend Yeshuah. Not out of obligation, or need, or want, but out of friendship and love that they had for the boy from Nazareth.

I'm glad for my friends in all the places they are, they are a blessing in my life continually regardless of their actual presence. They are the strong council that lifts me up. They are the teachers that help me re-examine my life, my thoughts and my decisions. They can hold me accountable, and give me some slack when I need it. They are the hands of Christ in my life here on earth.

Nobody Know, Nobody Sees

John 13:31-35

Acts 11:1-8

Revelation 21

Lately I haven’t felt a whole lot like loving people.

I don’t necessarily mean the people that we meet and greet and see everyday, I don’t really mean family, I mean, filled with that all reaching love for all our fellow people in the world. The kind of Love that Christ is talking about through this verse in John.

Honestly, I’ve felt like kicking the tar out of a couple of people in the world. My mother calls that reaction “righteous fire,” which she says, and I believe her, that I received from her blood. There seems to have been a rash of bad news lately. Starting with the university shooting, and ending, for me at least, with an interview with an author on TV.

The author they were interviewing was Christopher Hitchens, who recently came out with a book entitled, “god is not Great.” I’d like to show him some righteous fire right where it counts. I repeat, I do not feel like loving people.

If you haven’t heard of this book yet, its subtitle tells it all: “How religions poison everything.” He begins in the book to dislike the three big world religions equally, that is Judaism, Islam, and Christianity – but it becomes quickly apparent he reserves a special viciousness for the Christians. In this book he espouses that we have no more need to call upon God, when “God is entirely superfluous in order to make sense of the world.” I tell you the world doesn’t make any sense to me at all without God at the core of it.

The rest of the book is ill conceived and poorly thought out garbage about how all the wars in the past 300 years were created by religion. Which is true only to the extent that it was the people of these religions, not God, who began and fought these wars. So, if anything the book should be called, “People are not Great,” which is something I’m sure we all know very well!

I would like to leave room in my anger, however, CS Lewis was, after all, a staunch atheist before his powerful conversion experience, so I will say that many of the criticisms that the book has about the people who profess Christianity are pretty well founded. He talks about blatant money-grubbing, jaw dropping hypocrisy, and sex scandals, of course. And rightfully, these are all the things that any person of faith would be able to conceded that the denominations should do without, and in fact do struggle against constantly. Again though, I’ll point out, that’s all about people not being great, not God.

And yet, Hitchen’s opinions are often echoed by the atheist society. Which just really boils my blood. The truly great scientists will be the first to tell you that there are things, even now, that exceed the greatest of our understanding. The physicist Freeman Dyson said that, “the universe behaves as though it knew we were coming!” The more we learn the more is revealed how little we know. Einstein himself was a God-fearing man, who is often misquoted by the atheists as their poster child. Even when he was alive they did this, much to his great disgust! Einstein began his early adulthood as a devout Jew who then at one point in his live, gave up his faith entirely. And yet, at the age of 50 he began the journey back to God, because what he was uncovering about the universe, for him, held no other explanation. And when even asked about Christ he replied in and interview that “ No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates ion every word. No myth is filled with such life!”

This is the great atheist mascot.

And yet, in some way, some how, the faithful out there when reading this book, or listening to the interview, or when approached by a colleague or co-worker, will have their faith shaken by the information, by the inquiries into their faith. Some will be undone.

Though who among us hasn’t lost faith? A hiccup in an unshakeable understanding? For some the devil’s words of doubt can reach us just after a time of great crisis, or pain in our lives. We can be culled from the herd of the faithful more easily when we are spiritually sick. I have felt faith slipping away, heard the panting of temptation close by, and wondered what I was going to hold on too. There is a song that says, “my faith is like shifting sands, and so I stand on Grace.” And what is Grace but Love? The Love that Christ has, that the Father has, that Love that accepts the children into the fold regardless of deed, the love that does not expect works, the Love that is the stable stalwart thing that makes this existence mean something.

We are more easily broken I think the more rigid we are. The more we think we know everything about God, or Christ, or the Holy Bible the more easily we are felled when tragedy comes. In John 13:33 Jesus calls us children, and how true is that? Like children we cling to things we think we understand and when something new comes along we shout and stamp and say NO NO NO! It has to be THIS way! The Jewish church in Judea we exactly the same. Peter, and remember now this is Peter, who was WITH Jesus during his ministry, there in the garden as he prayed, on of the closest to him of the apostles, and yet they balk at his understanding of Christ’s teaching for the world. They did more than that really, the Greek form of the word, contend, or criticize is diek rin onto which means truly to stand against, to oppose, to create a division. They were lining up on the other side of the room, ready to have it out with him.

And we can identify with that can’t we? Here are the believers who, up to this point assume three things about Christianity: (1) that followers will have to be Jews first, (2) that they will commit to the Law of Moses, and (3) that they will observe all the ceremonies and rituals of Judaism. After all they saw Christ as the Jewish messiah that had been awaited. And they were right. But that wasn’t the whole story.

Their faith was shaken, and to the core really, because what Peter does us upsets the basic foundation of the religion up to that point. This is huge, and when he gets back they are ready for him boy, they have been stewing about this the whole time and they are ready to bring him to the ground for this. Because their faith has been shaken. I’ve been reading a book recently by Rob Bell in which he compares an unhealthy faith is like a brick wall. Everything is built up on top on another, and if one of the bricks at the very bottom is found to be flawed--the whole thing comes crashing down. And that’s what was happening here in Judea and what can happen here just as easily.

This same book by Rob Bell, suggested that a healthy faith is more like a trampoline. Our faith really is like the fabric part, the part we bounce on, the part that lifts us up. The spring supporting the fabric, are the tenants that we believe that support our faith. You can take one out, examine it, look at it, and the trampoline still works. You can even change it a little, make it longer, or shorter so that it changes the bounce. Yet, through all of this it still remains a spring.

Peter is preparing the people of the church in Judea for the revelation of John years later. Part of the reading this week covered a chapter in Revelation, the beginning of Chapter Twenty-One to be exact. In that reading it talks about John seeing the promise of the new heaven and the new earth and the old things passing away, and the promise that there would be no more tears or sorrow in this new place. Look deeper into the prophecy though, and what do you find?

We must be willing to accept the passing away of the old things, before we can exist in the new. And at first that might sound easy, but how often we find our bad habits to be the most ingrained. We cannot let them go! Yet, the vision f John says that we can only have the sorrowless life if we can let the old things pass away.

Peter says that in order to come into the fullest expression of the Love Christ charged us with we must do this new thing! We must have this New understanding, as told to me by God.

So let the Atheist come. I’m not afraid of Hitchens and his book, let it be published, let it be wrung out in the streets, I’ll host him a book signing in my own living room even. Because this church, this collection of the faithful I know will stand firm or Grace. Will stand firm on that love of Christ. Love will be that KEY spring in the trampoline of our Faith together. Go ahead, take it out examine it! Look at it, dissect it, and try to twist it. Put it back and I’ll be lifted up twice as high.

Then we can all say, “I have new understanding every day. I see the new heaven and a new earth. I am ready to let the old fall away.”

Let’s let Peter come back to a welcome, instead of war. Lets bring him back and say, “Pete, what is this new thing you are doing? It sounds CRAZY, but tell us more. What’s God been saying to you?” Because you know what? I am determined, not to build a wall out of my faith.

We can make our faith stronger, so that in the times of trouble when we are going to be vulnerable, we will survive without being shaken. We can meet tragedy with the knowledge that God is Lord. That the great I am, IS, and will always be.

Because what does Christ tell us? That there will be love. This is one of the greatest in the last of the instructions that he is giving to the apostles before the crucifixion. If you want people to know you as my followers, the love each other.

And in this moment, there are no parables, no stories, just utter simplicity. Love each other.

That my friends is how we support one another through these trials of faith, through these great tests that life is going to inevitably throw at each and every one of us. Because in a community of faith there isn’t just one person on a trampoline, it’s a whole field full of people on trampolines all hooked in together. And it’s up to us all to say to the person that has all their spring taken out, “hey, that’s ok, hook up to my springs and you can bounce on them for a while till we get your back.” And it might be easy to think about a few people in a church who you wouldn’t mind really sharing with, or holding up, and that’s ok, because the natural tendency is to gravitate like towards like, but the true purpose of the faith, as charged to us by Christ himself is to be prepared, ready and able to meet with true and honest love all the members of the body. Because what was Christ love if not true and honest and the most pure and free of maliciousness or hurtful thoughts? And it’s his model we follow.

So let’s look to the vision of John at Patmos and seek out the New World that God has prepared for us, let’s look to Peter and see what new understanding is coming to us on the horizon, and lets meet all of these with emotion of Christ’s love and support for one another. Because, even when I feel like I can’t love, or when I am in no mood to view the world with the Kindness of Christ, I know I can turn to my brothers and sisters to hold me up, and make me strong, until I can do so again in the name of Jesus’ love.