MEMO FOR FEB 14
Luke 9:28-36 (37-43a)
What kind of God is this--Indeed?”
i
Can you believe it? Transfiguration Sunday is upon us and we have another seven inches of snow.
I don?t know who puts these lessons together, but I think that Deuteronomy 34:1-10, the account of God showing Moses the promised land and then telling him that he can?t go in would have made a better parallel for the Gospel for this day. Remember, after God takes Moses to the mountain and shows him the promise land. God refuses to let Moses cross over. Just rules him out on a technicality and gives him an unmarked grave. What kind of God is this-- indeed? Three of my saints got unmarked graves, Moses, Mozart and Calvin. (Some would say that Calvin deserved his!) but, certainly not Moses.
When we read the Luke passage, we find Jesus and the disciples up on the mountain of transfiguration, and Moses is conferring with Jesus. Moses if you are back there in that unmarked grave, how is that we find you in the future that God is preparing? What kind of God is this-- indeed?
If we read further in the Gospel text for today, we discover a demon fleeing from Jesus. It would seem that Luke?s Jesus is the enemy of all things broken and lost, the one who restores. I found 26 healing stories in Luke. What kind of a God is this--indeed? I think all of this tells me that God is the one who restores our broken dreams and lives, even so Moses. But God?s ways are certainly not our ways--thank God!
Abraham Heschel reminds us that some see a single flash of light in the entire night of their lives. With others there are long or short intermissions between the flashes of illumination... He continues there is a loneliness within us that hears. When the soul parts company with the ego and its petty conceits; when we cease to exploit all things but instead pray the world?s cry, the world?s sigh, our loneliness may hear the living grace beyond all power. We must first peer into the darkness, feel the ...hopelessness of living without God, before we are ready to feel the presence of God?s living light. God in Search of Man, A philosophy of Judaism, The Jewish Publication Society of America. 1956,
Monday, February 8, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Memo for Sunday, Feb 7, 2010
Luke 5:1-11
"Going fishing"
The Luke passage has Jesus showing the fishermen where to catch the fish. As I read my Bible it would seem that the fishers never caught any fish without Jesus? help. Maybe there is a sermon in there somewhere. I have preached lots of sermons on Jesus calling those fisher folk and telling them that they shall become fisher of men. When the Church, especially the Methodist Men, picked up on this text they formed fishermen?s clubs as a form of evangelism. I think this was a good use of the text but there is more here .
Rudolf Bultmann has written that the fishers of men text referred to Jesus knowledge of a greek god who would capture men and imprison them in water. Thus to become a fisher of men was to set the prisoner free. I like it, but for the life me I cannot find the Bultmann reference. (I probably gave my Bultmann books to the Planned Parenthood Book Sale when He went out of vogue.) His thought does make sense because water, the deeps, was a place of great fear and foreboding in the first century, and to live in fear is indeed to be in prison. As I recall, Wesley wrote a hymn about setting the prisoner free.
I Corinthians 15
Paul and the Resurrection
If you are not into fishing this week then take a look at I Corinthians 15. This writing is one of the earliest sermons in the New Testament. It predates the Gospels. Paul writing to the Church at Corinth wishes for them to know of his mystical experience on the Road to Damascus. He is trying to help a skeptical world understand the Resurrection and in doing so provides us with that first list of eye witnesses to the risen Christ. (Please note that the key witnesses to the Resurrection, namely the women, are left off the list. ) Why did Paul leave them out? Was it because he had not yet read, or heard Mark preach his Gospel? Or could it be that in the very first stages of formation, the church already was practicing exclusion? This passage is important for me for three reasons. 1) We can correct the sin of the church by setting the record straight regarding women in the church. 2) Paul tells us that he experienced the Risen Christ as one untimely born, meaning he did not get to walk and talk with Jesus as Peter did. I too, and all of us, are untimely born. I take it to mean that we too can experience the risen Christ. I must admit that the Damascus experience was a tough one, but that may be the first step for many of us. 3) Paul puts the emphasis of the resurrection where it belongs, not on some empty tomb, but in the work of the risen Christ who creates hope for each of us. And we discover that Paul?s idea of Resurrection is about finding new and true life right now.
Worth Pondering
“Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is replaced with creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the spender of the past, when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority, rather than with the voice of compassion--its message is meaningless. Abraham Heschel. From God in Search of Man The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1955, p.3
Luke 5:1-11
"Going fishing"
The Luke passage has Jesus showing the fishermen where to catch the fish. As I read my Bible it would seem that the fishers never caught any fish without Jesus? help. Maybe there is a sermon in there somewhere. I have preached lots of sermons on Jesus calling those fisher folk and telling them that they shall become fisher of men. When the Church, especially the Methodist Men, picked up on this text they formed fishermen?s clubs as a form of evangelism. I think this was a good use of the text but there is more here .
Rudolf Bultmann has written that the fishers of men text referred to Jesus knowledge of a greek god who would capture men and imprison them in water. Thus to become a fisher of men was to set the prisoner free. I like it, but for the life me I cannot find the Bultmann reference. (I probably gave my Bultmann books to the Planned Parenthood Book Sale when He went out of vogue.) His thought does make sense because water, the deeps, was a place of great fear and foreboding in the first century, and to live in fear is indeed to be in prison. As I recall, Wesley wrote a hymn about setting the prisoner free.
I Corinthians 15
Paul and the Resurrection
If you are not into fishing this week then take a look at I Corinthians 15. This writing is one of the earliest sermons in the New Testament. It predates the Gospels. Paul writing to the Church at Corinth wishes for them to know of his mystical experience on the Road to Damascus. He is trying to help a skeptical world understand the Resurrection and in doing so provides us with that first list of eye witnesses to the risen Christ. (Please note that the key witnesses to the Resurrection, namely the women, are left off the list. ) Why did Paul leave them out? Was it because he had not yet read, or heard Mark preach his Gospel? Or could it be that in the very first stages of formation, the church already was practicing exclusion? This passage is important for me for three reasons. 1) We can correct the sin of the church by setting the record straight regarding women in the church. 2) Paul tells us that he experienced the Risen Christ as one untimely born, meaning he did not get to walk and talk with Jesus as Peter did. I too, and all of us, are untimely born. I take it to mean that we too can experience the risen Christ. I must admit that the Damascus experience was a tough one, but that may be the first step for many of us. 3) Paul puts the emphasis of the resurrection where it belongs, not on some empty tomb, but in the work of the risen Christ who creates hope for each of us. And we discover that Paul?s idea of Resurrection is about finding new and true life right now.
Worth Pondering
“Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is replaced with creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the spender of the past, when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority, rather than with the voice of compassion--its message is meaningless. Abraham Heschel. From God in Search of Man The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1955, p.3
Memo for Sunday, Feb 7, 2010
Luke 5:1-11
"Going fishing"
The Luke passage has Jesus showing the fishermen where to catch the fish. As I read my Bible it would seem that the fishers never caught any fish without Jesus? help. Maybe there is a sermon in there somewhere. I have preached lots of sermons on Jesus calling those fisher folk and telling them that they shall become fisher of men. When the Church, especially the Methodist Men, picked up on this text they formed fishermen?s clubs as a form of evangelism. I think this was a good use of the text but there is more here . Rudolf Bultmann has written that the fishers of men text referred to Jesus knowledge of a greek god who would capture men and imprison them in water. Thus to become a fisher of men was to set the prisoner free. I like it, but for the life me I cannot find the Bultmann reference. (I probably gave my Bultmann books to the Planned Parenthood Book Sale when He went out of vogue.) His thought does make sense because water, the deeps, was a place of great fear and foreboding in the first century, and to live in fear is indeed to be in prison. As I recall, Wesley wrote a hymn about setting the prisoner free.
I Corinthians 15
Paul and the Resurrection
If you are not into fishing this week then take a look at I Corinthians 15. This writing is one of the earliest sermons in the New Testament. It predates the Gospels. Paul writing to the Church at Corinth wishes for them to know of his mystical experience on the Road to Damascus. He is trying to help a skeptical world understand the Resurrection and in doing so provides us with that first list of eye witnesses to the risen Christ. (Please note that the key witnesses to the Resurrection, namely the women, are left off the list. ) Why did Paul leave them out? Was it because he had not yet read, or heard Mark preach his Gospel? Or could it be that in the very first stages of formation, the church already was practicing exclusion? This passage is important for me for three reasons. 1) We can correct the sin of the church by setting the record straight regarding women in the church. 2) Paul tells us that he experienced the Risen Christ as one untimely born, meaning he did not get to walk and talk with Jesus as Peter did. I too, and all of us, are untimely born. I take it to mean that we too can experience the risen Christ. I must admit that the Damascus experience was a tough one, but that may be the first step for many of us. 3) Paul puts the emphasis of the resurrection where it belongs, not on some empty tomb, but in the work of the risen Christ who creates hope for each of us. And we discover that Paul?s idea of Resurrection is about finding new and true life right now.
Worth Pondering
“Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is replaced with creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splender of the past, when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority, rather than with the voice of compassion--its message is meaningless. Abraham Heschel. From God in Search of Man The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1955, p.3
Luke 5:1-11
"Going fishing"
The Luke passage has Jesus showing the fishermen where to catch the fish. As I read my Bible it would seem that the fishers never caught any fish without Jesus? help. Maybe there is a sermon in there somewhere. I have preached lots of sermons on Jesus calling those fisher folk and telling them that they shall become fisher of men. When the Church, especially the Methodist Men, picked up on this text they formed fishermen?s clubs as a form of evangelism. I think this was a good use of the text but there is more here . Rudolf Bultmann has written that the fishers of men text referred to Jesus knowledge of a greek god who would capture men and imprison them in water. Thus to become a fisher of men was to set the prisoner free. I like it, but for the life me I cannot find the Bultmann reference. (I probably gave my Bultmann books to the Planned Parenthood Book Sale when He went out of vogue.) His thought does make sense because water, the deeps, was a place of great fear and foreboding in the first century, and to live in fear is indeed to be in prison. As I recall, Wesley wrote a hymn about setting the prisoner free.
I Corinthians 15
Paul and the Resurrection
If you are not into fishing this week then take a look at I Corinthians 15. This writing is one of the earliest sermons in the New Testament. It predates the Gospels. Paul writing to the Church at Corinth wishes for them to know of his mystical experience on the Road to Damascus. He is trying to help a skeptical world understand the Resurrection and in doing so provides us with that first list of eye witnesses to the risen Christ. (Please note that the key witnesses to the Resurrection, namely the women, are left off the list. ) Why did Paul leave them out? Was it because he had not yet read, or heard Mark preach his Gospel? Or could it be that in the very first stages of formation, the church already was practicing exclusion? This passage is important for me for three reasons. 1) We can correct the sin of the church by setting the record straight regarding women in the church. 2) Paul tells us that he experienced the Risen Christ as one untimely born, meaning he did not get to walk and talk with Jesus as Peter did. I too, and all of us, are untimely born. I take it to mean that we too can experience the risen Christ. I must admit that the Damascus experience was a tough one, but that may be the first step for many of us. 3) Paul puts the emphasis of the resurrection where it belongs, not on some empty tomb, but in the work of the risen Christ who creates hope for each of us. And we discover that Paul?s idea of Resurrection is about finding new and true life right now.
Worth Pondering
“Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is replaced with creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splender of the past, when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority, rather than with the voice of compassion--its message is meaningless. Abraham Heschel. From God in Search of Man The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1955, p.3
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
MEMO FOR JAN 31
JEREMIAH 1:4-10 The Reluctant Prophet
“Then I said, Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy...
These days I teach the first course for second career students who are entering the Course of Study at the Saint Paul School of Theology. These students are middle age and beyond. One aspect of the course is to have the students reflect on what finally brought them into the pastoral ministry. A good number of them will say “well we thought about ministry when we were sixteen, but just put it off. There was first one thing then another”. These people are in good company because in the Hebrew scriptures many of the people that God calls protest or find some excuse to stay out. Mose, Jeremiah, and Jonah to name a few, protest long and loud.
Tex Sample once told some of us that if the call is real, it will be like having to throw up. You can put it off for a time, but it will happen. I think the call to ordained ministry that is real is irresistible. That is why I some times say to students “if you can possibly stay out you should”. After all this is hard work. According to Jeremiah we are called to “pluck up and pull down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant’.
These “come lately” students are a real blessing for the church. They are eager to learn, willing to read books, and they serve in small places where hope is thin. And do you know what? They don’t seem all burned out and exhausted. And, wonder of wonders, in those tiny congregations where they are appointed, new life emerges.
Some years ago I had a student who was seventy two. She was a retired Librarian with a Master’s Degree. I asked her why she was entering the Ministry at her age, after all the COS takes about five years to complete. She said that in her little town the D.S. was planning to close the church. She told the D.S. that she would talk if the people wanted to come and listen and the D.S. was wise enough to allow that to happen. Soon the church began to grow and there were babies needing baptism and the people were asking for the Lord’s Supper so she said “I decide to come over here to get my union card punched”. Then she said to me,
, “what are you doing here?” I had just turned seventy. I said “well I suppose I am here to help you with that union card.”
The ministry of the ordained is an amazing gift from God. Why not go find a few of those sixteen year old kids and encourage them not to put the call off too long. Preach well! The Memo is now available on my blog at
http://billcotton.blogspot.com/
JEREMIAH 1:4-10 The Reluctant Prophet
“Then I said, Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy...
These days I teach the first course for second career students who are entering the Course of Study at the Saint Paul School of Theology. These students are middle age and beyond. One aspect of the course is to have the students reflect on what finally brought them into the pastoral ministry. A good number of them will say “well we thought about ministry when we were sixteen, but just put it off. There was first one thing then another”. These people are in good company because in the Hebrew scriptures many of the people that God calls protest or find some excuse to stay out. Mose, Jeremiah, and Jonah to name a few, protest long and loud.
Tex Sample once told some of us that if the call is real, it will be like having to throw up. You can put it off for a time, but it will happen. I think the call to ordained ministry that is real is irresistible. That is why I some times say to students “if you can possibly stay out you should”. After all this is hard work. According to Jeremiah we are called to “pluck up and pull down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant’.
These “come lately” students are a real blessing for the church. They are eager to learn, willing to read books, and they serve in small places where hope is thin. And do you know what? They don’t seem all burned out and exhausted. And, wonder of wonders, in those tiny congregations where they are appointed, new life emerges.
Some years ago I had a student who was seventy two. She was a retired Librarian with a Master’s Degree. I asked her why she was entering the Ministry at her age, after all the COS takes about five years to complete. She said that in her little town the D.S. was planning to close the church. She told the D.S. that she would talk if the people wanted to come and listen and the D.S. was wise enough to allow that to happen. Soon the church began to grow and there were babies needing baptism and the people were asking for the Lord’s Supper so she said “I decide to come over here to get my union card punched”. Then she said to me,
, “what are you doing here?” I had just turned seventy. I said “well I suppose I am here to help you with that union card.”
The ministry of the ordained is an amazing gift from God. Why not go find a few of those sixteen year old kids and encourage them not to put the call off too long. Preach well! The Memo is now available on my blog at
http://billcotton.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
From: cottonbillcotton
Subject: Memo for Jan 24
Date: January 19, 2010 7:35:27 AM PST
To: "Paul burrow", "art mcclanahan"
Memo for Sunday, January 24.
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6,8-10
A return to Watergate
When the people returned from exile to find the temple in rubble, no wall around the city and Jerusalem less than golden, there was something of a merger of church and state--a rebuilding of city, temple and people. The governor, Nehemiah, and the priest and scribe Ezra got together for a very special occasion. In an earlier repairing of the temple someone had found an old scroll--they took it to Hulula the Prophetess to determine if it was authentic, probably Deuteronomy, and Hulula declared it authentic. (Do you find it interesting that Israel had women in such high places of authority )?
Ezra will read the law to the people gathered before the watergate from early morning until mid day. They were hungry for story. There is weeping, rejoicing and that day was declared holy because an exiled people had found their story again.
All of this is to say when the people lose their story they are no longer a people. Preaches are custodians of the story. That is why biblical preaching is so important.
And that is why we are not free to ride our favorite hobby horse too often.
Luke 4:14-21 First Sermon
In the Gospel for the day Jesus preaches his first sermon. Do any of you remember your first Sermon? I certainly do. I came home from two years in the Army ready to enter the ministry. The committee, remembering me from MYF days, was not so sure about me. That committee did its work with great care in our church. They wanted to hear me preach. In that first sermon I told them about the prodigal son, the ten commandments threw in a bit of Revelation and looked at my watch and five minutes had expired. I sat down. The committee was gracious so they let me in.
It was was not the same with Jesus. He was from Nazareth, and according to some scholars Nazareth was such a bad place that it is seldom mentioned except in derogatory ways. “Can anything good come out of that place”. Jesus read from Isaiah, verses well known, but then he goes too far. He wishes for them to know that the long wait is over--the Messiah is here. Can?t you just hear them saying to each other, “isn?t that Joe and Mary?s boy”? What has be been smoking”? Well we need to wait until next week for the rest of the story...
The call: " We were dreamed for a long time before we were born. Our souls minds and hearts fashioned in imagination. Such care and attention went into the creation of each person.... The great law of life is: be yourself. Though this axiom sounds simple, it is often a difficult task. To be your self you have to learn how to become who you were dreamed to be. To be born is to be chosen. There is something that each of us has to do in the world. The call is to find it." To Bless the space between, by John O'Donohue Doubleday, New York 2008 , p.135.
Subject: Memo for Jan 24
Date: January 19, 2010 7:35:27 AM PST
To: "Paul burrow"
Memo for Sunday, January 24.
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6,8-10
A return to Watergate
When the people returned from exile to find the temple in rubble, no wall around the city and Jerusalem less than golden, there was something of a merger of church and state--a rebuilding of city, temple and people. The governor, Nehemiah, and the priest and scribe Ezra got together for a very special occasion. In an earlier repairing of the temple someone had found an old scroll--they took it to Hulula the Prophetess to determine if it was authentic, probably Deuteronomy, and Hulula declared it authentic. (Do you find it interesting that Israel had women in such high places of authority )?
Ezra will read the law to the people gathered before the watergate from early morning until mid day. They were hungry for story. There is weeping, rejoicing and that day was declared holy because an exiled people had found their story again.
All of this is to say when the people lose their story they are no longer a people. Preaches are custodians of the story. That is why biblical preaching is so important.
And that is why we are not free to ride our favorite hobby horse too often.
Luke 4:14-21 First Sermon
In the Gospel for the day Jesus preaches his first sermon. Do any of you remember your first Sermon? I certainly do. I came home from two years in the Army ready to enter the ministry. The committee, remembering me from MYF days, was not so sure about me. That committee did its work with great care in our church. They wanted to hear me preach. In that first sermon I told them about the prodigal son, the ten commandments threw in a bit of Revelation and looked at my watch and five minutes had expired. I sat down. The committee was gracious so they let me in.
It was was not the same with Jesus. He was from Nazareth, and according to some scholars Nazareth was such a bad place that it is seldom mentioned except in derogatory ways. “Can anything good come out of that place”. Jesus read from Isaiah, verses well known, but then he goes too far. He wishes for them to know that the long wait is over--the Messiah is here. Can?t you just hear them saying to each other, “isn?t that Joe and Mary?s boy”? What has be been smoking”? Well we need to wait until next week for the rest of the story...
The call: " We were dreamed for a long time before we were born. Our souls minds and hearts fashioned in imagination. Such care and attention went into the creation of each person.... The great law of life is: be yourself. Though this axiom sounds simple, it is often a difficult task. To be your self you have to learn how to become who you were dreamed to be. To be born is to be chosen. There is something that each of us has to do in the world. The call is to find it." To Bless the space between, by John O'Donohue Doubleday, New York 2008 , p.135.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Memo for Second Sunday after Epiphany
January 17
John 2: 1-11 “On the third day there was a wedding at Cana...”
I think it is nice that the first miracle in John’s gospel has Jesus turning water into wine--and lots of it. Who needed all of that wine? He filled six stone jars each holding 20 to 30 gallons. That is a lot of sauce!
A friend tells me that some scholars think that the disciples crashed the wedding party and drank all the wine and that is why Mary brought the problem to Jesus. There are lots of strange aspects to this story. Would any of you dare call your mother “Woman”? That’s how Jesus addresses Mary. And why did the event happen on the third day? Why was Jesus attending the wedding? And who got married?
I once had the President of the old Temperance League in the church I served. She was sure that the wine was grape juice. She took me to task after I said to the congregation that being Christian is about the business of turning the water into wine. I was trying to say that the Christian life needs to be about joyous abundant living and wine is a symbol of such joy. The Temperance Lady was not having any of that.
Paul Tillich once was asked about our practice of using juice rather than wine at communion. Tillich said that we should never dilute a symbol. (I know all the reasons to justify using the juice and I would not argue for change. I do think, however, that Bishop Welsh had a good thing going).
The wedding at Cana is the first of seven miracles in John’s Gospel. The writer looks back through the Easter event to help us see Jesus as the risen Christ--the new wine- that the old wine skins will not hold. And there is joy. He will say that he came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. Scarcity, the rule of the day then and now is restored by abundance. What if we decided as the church to be the new wine--the confident people of hope and joy. Do you have “the joy, joy, down in your heart?” Well let it out--Christ is risen. The epiphany light shines in the darkness. Go tell it on the mountain.
New Resource
On the third Monday in January we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was assassinated On April 4, 1968.
To honor King’s life I have been reading Just Us or Justice? Moving toward a Pan-Methodist Theology by a young teacher at the Saint Paul School of Theology, F. Douglas Powe Jr., and published by Abingdon Press.
Powe makes the case for integrating African American and Wesleyan theologies and reveals not only our sorry history but also the new possibilities for reconciliation and reunion. His chapter on Engaging Friendships using the sources of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Fine, and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple to provide models for friendship is just wonderful. A good book for the Church Library.
January 17
John 2: 1-11 “On the third day there was a wedding at Cana...”
I think it is nice that the first miracle in John’s gospel has Jesus turning water into wine--and lots of it. Who needed all of that wine? He filled six stone jars each holding 20 to 30 gallons. That is a lot of sauce!
A friend tells me that some scholars think that the disciples crashed the wedding party and drank all the wine and that is why Mary brought the problem to Jesus. There are lots of strange aspects to this story. Would any of you dare call your mother “Woman”? That’s how Jesus addresses Mary. And why did the event happen on the third day? Why was Jesus attending the wedding? And who got married?
I once had the President of the old Temperance League in the church I served. She was sure that the wine was grape juice. She took me to task after I said to the congregation that being Christian is about the business of turning the water into wine. I was trying to say that the Christian life needs to be about joyous abundant living and wine is a symbol of such joy. The Temperance Lady was not having any of that.
Paul Tillich once was asked about our practice of using juice rather than wine at communion. Tillich said that we should never dilute a symbol. (I know all the reasons to justify using the juice and I would not argue for change. I do think, however, that Bishop Welsh had a good thing going).
The wedding at Cana is the first of seven miracles in John’s Gospel. The writer looks back through the Easter event to help us see Jesus as the risen Christ--the new wine- that the old wine skins will not hold. And there is joy. He will say that he came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. Scarcity, the rule of the day then and now is restored by abundance. What if we decided as the church to be the new wine--the confident people of hope and joy. Do you have “the joy, joy, down in your heart?” Well let it out--Christ is risen. The epiphany light shines in the darkness. Go tell it on the mountain.
New Resource
On the third Monday in January we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was assassinated On April 4, 1968.
To honor King’s life I have been reading Just Us or Justice? Moving toward a Pan-Methodist Theology by a young teacher at the Saint Paul School of Theology, F. Douglas Powe Jr., and published by Abingdon Press.
Powe makes the case for integrating African American and Wesleyan theologies and reveals not only our sorry history but also the new possibilities for reconciliation and reunion. His chapter on Engaging Friendships using the sources of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Fine, and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple to provide models for friendship is just wonderful. A good book for the Church Library.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Memo for first Sunday in January
Ecclesiastes 3:1-9 “ For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die...”
“ It was the worst of times; it was the best of times…” so began Dickens “Tale of Two Cities”. Somehow this Word always fits the New Year. What we expect and what actually happens are never the same. History never, repeats itself—although it often does rhyme . So it is a good thing to pay attention to the similarities. You know “the one who ignores the past is doomed to repeat it” or something like that.
The preacher in Ecclesiastes makes some allowance for all of this with her ten verse couplets. Everything has its time. The reading of these somber words just feels good in the mouth despite the fact that this preacher was caught up in the fatalism of the day. She was a skeptic, who not only questioned every thing, she was certain that she was right. Finally, “All is vanity…” Paul Tillich in his Complete History of the Christian faith, p. 3, reminds us that the skeptic or stoic was the major challenger to the Christian faith in the first century. The skeptic lacked a knowledge of hope, and without hope a people fall into fatalism and despair.
Over the last year I have hung out with a group of people who are studying The Three Principles by Sidney Banks. I thought this material was the latest thing in Positive Thinking so I was very suspicious. (Preachers do not like to be confronted with a challenge to their theology). Basically, what I learned was a simple truth. Our thoughts control how we feel about life. But our thoughts are not real. We make up our thoughts and act as if they are real and this can get us into major difficulty in living. In a word – it is really a good thing to think about our thinking. (duh!)
The preacher in Ecclesiastes wrote in a way that causes us to put the emphasis on the first and last word in the couplets.
“A time to live a time to die.” But the part that is missing is to discover that how we think about life and death makes the difference. This may be why Wesley worked most of his life to connect the relationship between mind and heart or experience. The Christian experience has everything to do with Paul’s admonition in Romans 12:2 that “we not be conformed to this world but transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we may discern, what is the will of God--what is good acceptable and perfect.
A time to be born, and a time to die...”
“ It was the worst of times; it was the best of times…” so began Dickens “Tale of Two Cities”. Somehow this Word always fits the New Year. What we expect and what actually happens are never the same. History never, repeats itself—although it often does rhyme . So it is a good thing to pay attention to the similarities. You know “the one who ignores the past is doomed to repeat it” or something like that.
The preacher in Ecclesiastes makes some allowance for all of this with her ten verse couplets. Everything has its time. The reading of these somber words just feels good in the mouth despite the fact that this preacher was caught up in the fatalism of the day. She was a skeptic, who not only questioned every thing, she was certain that she was right. Finally, “All is vanity…” Paul Tillich in his Complete History of the Christian faith, p. 3, reminds us that the skeptic or stoic was the major challenger to the Christian faith in the first century. The skeptic lacked a knowledge of hope, and without hope a people fall into fatalism and despair.
Over the last year I have hung out with a group of people who are studying The Three Principles by Sidney Banks. I thought this material was the latest thing in Positive Thinking so I was very suspicious. (Preachers do not like to be confronted with a challenge to their theology). Basically, what I learned was a simple truth. Our thoughts control how we feel about life. But our thoughts are not real. We make up our thoughts and act as if they are real and this can get us into major difficulty in living. In a word – it is really a good thing to think about our thinking. (duh!)
The preacher in Ecclesiastes wrote in a way that causes us to put the emphasis on the first and last word in the couplets.
“A time to live a time to die.” But the part that is missing is to discover that how we think about life and death makes the difference. This may be why Wesley worked most of his life to connect the relationship between mind and heart or experience. The Christian experience has everything to do with Paul’s admonition in Romans 12:2 that “we not be conformed to this world but transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we may discern, what is the will of God--what is good acceptable and perfect.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
