Christmas, 2012

Gun downed children in their schools

Congress playing with the rules

Wall Street living off their greed

Christian name without the creed.

The unemployed still worry lots

The voters give okay to pot

The shoppers seek the desperate deals

And kitchens serve a Christmas meal.

Our games are full of blood and gore

The NRA just begs for more.

There is darkness deep within

That once was labelled human sin.

We need the  child in the manager stall

Who came with grace to offer all..

rcb, 2012

Violence And Change

     It is obvious that the shooting in Newtown has lifted the issue of violence to a new level.  I was among those whose first reaction to the news of the shooting was that we have to do something about guns.  But I am pleased that the President has not made any statement about what we need to do. He has indicated that we as a people need to do something different. We should not tolerate having this kind of tragedy every year. We have to do something different, but he has not said what that should be. He has said we need to talk about it.

     We need to talk about it because there are so many factors which are a part of these events.  There is the mental health issue.  How do we reach and treat those people who are different from the rest of us. The loner, the bullied, the gifted but different, those who do not have all of the talents and gifts of the main stream?    Certainly that is a major part of these stories.

      What part do all the violence and killing on T.V, movies, comics, video games play in the development of these events?  Do these games give ideas to these people as they live out their pain and isolation?  Do these movies and games prepare the person to know about body armor, about weapons, about how to get the most damage from the least effort. (I would have never even imagined using what they use to kill cattle in slaughter houses as a weapon until I saw the movie "No Country for Old Men.")  Is there something we need to do about the amount of violence we pour into the culture?

      Morgan Freeman has complained about the amount of publicity that we give these shooters. That part of what they seek is the recognition and fame that comes from the actions. They may have been ignored, pushed aside, bullied, but "look at me now. Now you won't forget me or ignore me. You will remember my name now." And the power and satisfaction that comes from the national attention. So maybe we should not give these events as much publicity as we do?

      And of course, there is the whole gun issue.  I think that we all recognize that we are not going to eliminate guns from our country.  There is a second amendment in our constitution. But the right to bear arms does not necessarily, it seems to me, mean that we are entitled to every kind of gun there is available.   We regulate the kind of drugs that are available. We regulate the kind of beer and alcohol that is made. Can we not regulate the kind of weapons that the public citizen can own?  Can we not develop a national registration of weapons and background checks for all owners?  The weapons used at Newtown were all legal and properly registered? What about automatic weapons? Could we not limit how many shots a weapon can fire in a certain time?  Just some ideas.  Australia and Great Britain have instituted gun limitations we need to talk with them about what they did.

      I hope that any legislature introduced now is the product of this kind of discussion that may have been had after the previous events.  But I hope that this Newtown tragedy does give us the energy and the determination to press to a conclusion and to make some significant changes.  The old argument that guns don't kill people, people kill people is a pretty empty argument. How many people would have died in Newtown if Adam had had to use an axe? or his hands, or a knife?  Sure he may have gotten a couple but the size of the tragedy would have been much smaller.  If we are serious about being a nation of Love and Justice, we need to make some changes.

christmas war

       It appears that certain media outlets in order to keep the pot stirred up have begun to talk about the liberals' war on Christmas. When you say "Happy Holidays" you are fighting against Christmas. When you do not protest because the city council will no longer pay for the creation of a Nativity scene in the public park, you are waging war against Christmas.  It is all a part of a great satanic plot to undermine the greatness of our country and lead the USA into the dumps. The malls that play "seasonal" music and not Christmas carols are part of the infantry that is fighting the war against Christmas.

       The truth of the matter, as it seems to me, is that there is a great war against the mass of Christ and it is not the one that the media people are talking about.  This is not a new war that has just begun in the last couple of years.  This is the war that Santa Christmas is waging against the Christ child's birth.  This is the push of the retail merchants to encourage more and more focus on the Santa of giving presents and buying stuff,  and ignoring the religious dimensions of the season.

       There has been, and it is a blessed thing that needed to be done, a push to dissolve the parasitic relationship between a kind of generic Christianity and the public policies. The promotion of the Christian faith in public schools, the opening of public meetings with Christian prayers, the honoring of Christian holidays with vacation days.  There has been a slow recognition and movement towards the principles of separation of church and state. The state will not seek to destroy or limit any religion by taxation and oppression, nor will it promote one religion over the other by special privileges.  Our country has become more and more religiously diverse and our eyes have been opened to how much of our public support has been totally given to the vague notion of the Christian faith.

       So it is entirely appropriate that in this time of the year when several religions have special celebrations that the government not give one of those celebrations more attention than others. But that is not a war on Christmas. It frees Christians to focus more joyfully on the coming of the Christ child.

        The real war on Christmas is the assault of the Santa Claus culture that continues to dominate the month of December.  Who is this holiday really for? Santa or Jesus.  Did you see the question asked by the Jewish child about whether or not Santa comes to Jewish children?  The Santa culture is invading the Jewish traditions. The really powerful and effective war that is being waged against Christmas is the commercialization of Christmas to the extent that the ideal image now is Santa driving Mercedes Benz cars and coming to your home.

      Saying "Happy Holidays" is not a problem for me, but hearing "Santa Claus is coming to town!" fires another shot at the Christ child in a manger.

Not Willing to Pay the Price - a story

Monday nights I play racquetball with a group of different people. Last Monday I was with two others playing and on the first point I got tangled up with them and fell hard to the floor.  But I won the point. The next play I got knocked hard to the floor again, but won the point.  I did not win any more points. I had learned what was necessary to win a point, but decided it was not worth it.

That reminded me of our church softball team.  We got into a league that was way over our level of skill but we had a good time. We lost every game but one. In that game it was very close and in a very close collision at home plate our player was safe and that was the winning run. The only problem was that our player broke his ankle in that collision.  That was a game in the middle of the season and we did not win any more games. We had discover what it took to win, but we did not have enough members who were willing to pay the price in order to win.  We joked about that a long time. We did not have enough members to pay the price and we did not have enough players to be able to lose one a game and still have a team.

Sometimes I think that we in our affluence society forget that there is a price to every victory, there is a cost for every success, and somebody has to pay.  If we were to ever look at the big picture about who has to pay for the success, we might change the definitions of victory and success.

NO MORE FOLLOWERS

For most of us who have claimed the clues to the mysteries of life in the story of the Christian faith, we have rooted ourselves in the history of the Christian mission that moved from Paul’s trips to Greece and Rome to the spread of the Christian faith to Europe and then to the United States.  We have developed a great treasury of intelligent, scholarly, wise books.  We claim Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Luther, Erasmus, Barth, Tillich, and the list of theologians who have marked the way is long.

From the moment that ships set sail in exploration of the “new world” there has been the idea that Christians should be involved in taking the Christian message to those who had not heard it. The story of that Christian missionary work has not always been a good story. The methods and approaches of missionaries to the natives was often condescending and paternalistic, but Christians from Europe, and later from the North America believed that they were the ones with the answers. They were the teachers and givers. 

Now the Christian faith is in decline in Europe and is pretty much stagnant in the United States. The great churches in Europe are mostly empty, and the number of people respond “None” when asked about a religious commitment in the United States is growing.  “Spiritual but not religious” is a very common response to surveys about religious interest.

At the same time, the Christian faith is very much alive and vibrant in the southern continents and in the Far East. Latin America, Africa, India, and China have very dynamic Christian communities. Their numbers are growing.  They now hold the majority of Christian people in the world.  The mission countries are now sending missionaries to the United States and Europe. 

The great challenge for Christians in Europe and the United States is to accept the leadership and guidance of the very people they have taught. The disciples are now more than the teachers. Now the teachers have to come to accept the guidance and decisions of the students.

The Christians of the Western Tradition who have thought for so long that they are the leaders now discover that the followers are not necessarily behind them. There is still an arrogance that we in the western tradition do not need to be told what to do by those in the southern and eastern part of the world. The Anglican Church held a conference and the bishops and leaders developed a request that the Episcopal Church in the United States not ordain any more homosexuals or gays for a while. Of course, the Episcopal church in the United States did not believe they should be limited by those Christians in Latin America, Africa and Asia. They went ahead.

Christians in Europe and the United States are no longer the head telling the rest of the body what to do and how to do it.  There are no more followers behind us.  The Christian witness will be guided and shaped by others.  We will need to learn from them.

     This is also a small example of what is happening in the larger political, economic, and social realities in the world.

What would be the Difference?

A scholar from Harvard has delivered a paper at a conference in Rome announcing that she has been examining a papyrus  piece of five lines of text that has the statement that Jesus says, "My wife"... I have no idea how authentic this piece is. The Scholar claims she and others have been very careful and they believe that it is a 2nd century a.d. papyrus.  So maybe 100 to 150 years after his death, we have a piece of writing that is supposed to quote Jesus saying something about a wife.

How would that change our understanding of the Christian message?  As I ponder the implications of that papyrus, I kept trying to find a place where the fact that Jesus was married would make any difference.

We already know that Jesus had dealings and conversations with women, and that he treated women with respect and integrity that was not always offered to them.  The four gospels have a number of stories where Jesus is very supportive of women.  So it would not be surprising that women would respond to him.

But what difference would a married Jesus make?  Think about the Christian apostles creed. Is there anything there that would have to change if he were married?  He could still be "born of a virgin, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, dead and buried. Descended into Hell, and on the third day He arose from the dead and ascending into heaven and sits on the right hand of God from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. "  All of those affirmations could still be affirmed about a married Jesus.

Certainly some traditions would find a lot of their justifications for many of their rituals and rubric disappearing if Jesus was married. The whole celibate thing for priest might take a serious hit if Jesus had been married.  Would it make Jesus more human to be married and less special in the minds of people?  Or would it increase his identification with humanity and make he more real for us?

So many different religions

It was a wonderful ten day trip to Egypt. The protesters in the streets stayed in their place and we went to our places and never crossed paths.  The great plus was that we were among a very small handful of people touring. We got to see and go to all of the sites without fighting any crowds. The guides, the stores, the sites were delighted to see us. There were no crowds at the Pyramids. No mob at Karnak or Luxor. The Valley of the Kings was empty of living people.  The down side was that all the vendors were desperate for sales and we had to fight off the constant appeals for "deals."

But the ten day tour did present a rapid history lesson and a major lesson in religions. The Temples were built for the Egyptians Gods and Goddesses.  But even among them there was the attempt to change gods under one of the Pharaohs. Then the invasion of the Hykoss came and brought a new religion. The Egyptians threw them out and returned to their gods. Then came the Greeks and while they had their own gods and goddess, Alexander the Great knew that political stability was best if you did not mess with people's religions so he tried to "act like an Egyptian."  The Romans came next with their set of gods and goddesses. The Christians came along about that time and they were welcomed in Egypt by the Egyptians but persecuted by the Romans until Rome became Christian.

The revolving religious story continued with the invasion of Islam. The Temple buildings kept being converted from one use to another. Temple, Church, Mosque, Temple, and on and on. Like so many other places the evidence for the other religion was "removed" by the present or current religion.

It has to make you realize that you have to understand the tentative nature of faith. There is no way to be absolutely sure that your faith is the "correct" one.  On the other hand, it does speak to our deep need and our deep conviction that there is a Holy Dimension to life that is concerned and involved with human history.  There is a need to worship in the human heart. There is a passionate hope for a life that extends beyond this life. There is a common element of death and resurrection.  There is, in many of the stories, a interaction of the gods with humans to achieve a special messenger and a different level of being.  There is an absolute agreement that heaven is much too large, and time is much to long for us to ever find the gods if they did not want to be found. There is  a common convictions that the gods have come to us and revealed themselves to us.

Today God loves me. I mean, what else can you say. My team won last night. The player I was cheering for won the tournament, my stocks have gone up last week, I had three good meals, last night was a good night’s rest. My children have not called me with any problems. My wife got to her destination with no car problems.  It is all good. God must love me.

Last week, God was not my friend.  Last week, the elections did not go as I had hoped. My doctor did not make it all better with one shot. The bills for my insurance came due. No one volunteered to help us at our office. The sermon I gave seemed pretty bland to me and to the people who heard it. It was not a good week. God did not love me that week.

Sometimes I think that that is how many of us evaluate our relationship with the Holy. It is a very, very old standard by which lots of people have used to evaluate their relationship with God. If things are going very well, and we are prospering then we must be doing good, and God is blessing us. If things are going poorly and we are struggling, then we must be doing something wrong, and God is punishing us.  It is a measuring stick that is even used in the Old Testament. If the king was faithful, then God blessed him and the king prospered. If the king was unfaithful, then God did not bless and the king suffered defeat and opposition.

It is the criteria that was debated directly in the book of Job. It was the philosophy that the disciples asked Jesus about when the man born blind came to Jesus. Who sinned to make this man blind? His parents or He? 

But what fascinates me most about us is how rapidly we change our opinion about what God thinks about us depending on the one event or one week.  We can go from thinking that God loves us to God has it in for us in a couple of hours. We can go from thinking that we are blessed to the conviction that God ignores us in one moment.  Maybe we could at least try to get a broader picture and consider the whole events of a year or two years.  

We might want to try to steady ourselves in the basic affirmation that indeed God loves the world and all who are in it and so God loves us all the time regardless of what happens to us. That God loves us and is working for the good of all creation in the events of the created order.  

But if that is a stretch for us then certainly we can remind ourselves as the Sinatra song says, “Life keeps turning in cycles, first there is laughter then tears. So I think I’ll stay round and see what tomorrow brings.“  And the whole story has not been told. One cannot evaluate the book until you get to the end.  We cannot make the final decision until the final event has happened. There is always the possibility of something happening that will change our verdict. 

It is a journey, an adventure, and without ups, downs, mysteries, challenges, surprises and joys it would not be nearly as much fun.

Nothing But Hope Will Do

My goodness, it sure looks like a losing streak to me:  Rainy day. My Sport teams are losing. The Republicans have just killed a great bill to require equal pay for women.  The recall of Scott Walker failed. The stock market is down. Fracking looks like it will be permitted. The state Democratic Party cannot get beyond its alleged sexual assault problems.  My home made bread just turned into a baked lump of hard dough (yeast was too old). and My shoulder surgery is not healing as quickly as I want it to.

With so many things going against my wants and wishes, it is a good time to remind myself that the opposition to my desires may suggest the presence of another's will and purpose at work in the world.  The list certainly reminds me that I am not God and that I cannot make things come out the way I want them.  The opposition to my will raises the possibility of another's will at work in the world moving us in another direction.

Into such sad and disappointing times, it is good to have the conviction that the other will at work in the world may not be just other people, but that there is a purpose and a providence that means creation good. That there is at work in History another Mind, another Heart that cares for creation and is at work to bring creation and all of us into fulfillment of our intended purposes. It is that faith in the presence of God at work in the world that gives me hope that even though "my side" is not winning now,  the side I want to win(which I would like to think is "my side" but which I know may not be), the God side, may be having a lot better luck.

The Biblical Immigration Policy

As has been pointed out so often, the people who are claiming the mantle of Christianity have a lot of trouble because they give no evidence of having read the Bible.  The Old Testament and the New Testament have a very generous immigration policy. Those on the right who want to capture the title of Christians have a very mean immigration policy.

The Old Testament has a lot of advice for the Children of Israel concerning the foreigners in your midst. The bottom line is that the Children of Israel need to be very kind, open and generous to the stranger, the foreigner in you midst because the Children of Israel should remember how they were treated as foreigners in Egypt.  Later the Kings of Israel are urged to be welcoming and gracious to the foreigners who come so that those visitors can see what wonders God has done for his people.

The New Testament in the letters just talk solves it all by saying that in Christ everybody is the same. We are all children of God so that we should love each other.

The Immigration problem in the United States needs to be addressed. Here are the pieces that need to be considered: a. We need a policy by which people can come and go freely. Worker's permit or visitors so that they cross at check points and not sneaking in. b. We need to give Hispanics who live here a chance to confess that they have violated the law(this is not amnesty), pay a fine (whatever amount seems appropriate) and give them a procedure by which they can become citizens or legal residents. We can not send them all back. Businesses need the workers.  A solution needs to be found, but the Biblical witness is that we should be a lot more gracious to the foreigner in our midst than many who have the name of Christian are sounding.

The Holy Spirit moves forward

If I hear one thing in all of our discussions about our country and our political debate, it is very clearly the question of whether we need to go back or go forward.  The complaint is that we have lost our way. We have deserted the founding principles. We have forsaken the values and virtues of the past. We have to go back. We have to turn this country around. We have to restore this country to its pinnacle of prestige. We have to become again the world's greatest nation.  These comments seem to dominate a lot of what I hear from the pages and screens of the media.

On the other hand, there is the side that suggests that we are a changing world, a different country, a more diverse people, and we need to move forward. We need to accept new ways and do new things.  We have to find new ways to live in a world where more than one country has nuclear weapons. We can no longer dictate to the world. We have to be prepared to adventure into the future and be ready to change as the future comes.

In my faith, that is one of the most important aspects of the power and grace of God. God is always moving his people forward. The Call to Abraham to go into a new land. "Behold I do a new thing" says the prophet. "Fear not," is always the greeting.  "I go before you..."  The Holy Spirit will come and lead you into all truth.   The direction of the grace and mercy of God in the Bible as I read it is always going forward, always preparing to invite us to have faith in God and "move out."

Spiritual Power?

 If there is one thing that our current society is not happy with it is "Restraints."  We do not want others telling us what we can and cannot do. We do not want limits. We do not want to have to hold in our feelings. We thinking that it takes great courage to express ourselves and to voice our protest loudly. If you feel passionately about a cause, then you need to express yourself vigorously.

So it was a little surprising to me to read the opinion "Spiritual strength consists of two things: great power of will and great power of self-restraint.  Spiritual power requires two things: great strong feelings and great ability to control and have command over those feelings."

To have great passion, to feel deeply, to be affected by events profoundly and to immediately express those feelings is really a sign of great weakness. Your emotions control you.  You are chaff blowing in the wind of your passions.

To have those great rages at injustice, to feel great passion for the sorrowing, to grieve deeply for those with great pain and to be able to be master of those emotions so that you can act in ways that channel and focus those emotions in a much more powerful way is to have Spiritual Strength.  Seems to me to be what Jesus is suggesting in "turn the other cheek."  Seems to me why Non-violence is such a great instrument for good. It is the kind of Spiritual strength that Jesus shows on the cross as his emotions are so deep but he remains in control and prays for their forgiveness.

The Spirit Gives life

On this Pentecost, it is basic to remember that there are lots of spirits.  Memorial Day is talking about the Spirit of America and the devotion many have shown to the country.  Isn't the Marines great pride their Spirit?  But there are school spirits, there are spirits of the arts, there are spirits of economy.  That is why we are advised to test the spirits.

I think all spirits do much the same thing. They give energy. The spirit adds excitement. The Spirit gives power. The spirits make us part of a large group. There is inspiration and focus given by spirits.  One of the great problems in our religious communities now is that there seems to be an absence of spirit.

Pentecost is about the Holy Spirit being given to the disciples.  As the story goes it gave them energy, it made them excitement and the ability to communicate.  There was courage and boldness given to the disciples so that they could come forward and speak about Jesus and the message of God's love in Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is given to give energy, excitement, it gives boldness, it gives passion, it gives life in joy and celebration of the love of God.  It is needed in so many places now.

Hateful Prayers - what a relief?

A Dallas judge has made it a lot easier on some ministers.  The Judge has ruled that praying for horrible things to happen to somebody is not illegal. A man had sued a Chaplain who had prayed that horrible things would happen to the man and his organization.  The Judge said it might not be pretty but it was not illegal.

I guess that is a relief for some ministers. Seems the article suggested that a lot of ministers are using various Psalms with their pleas for the dashing of heads and fire and brimstone on their enemies as prayers against various enemies.

I once asked a Sunday School Class who were their enemies. In that class not a single person admitted to having any enemies. They did not hate anybody. I thought that was strange as Jesus seemed to expect us to have some enemies because he asked us to pray for them.  I do not think he expected us to pray hurt or destruction, suffering or death upon them.   But if we do, it is good to know that it is not illegal in a Texas court.

Clash of Pentecost and Memorial Day

What a wonderful clash of calendars we have this week.  According to the calendar of the church this is Pentecost Sunday. When the Spirit of God comes upon the frightened, confused, and amazed disciples and gives them the power to be the body of Christ in the world. Gives them power to speak to the powers of death and darkness to bring comfort, hope and the power of life. The Holy Spirit brings people into the communion of faith. It makes us part of kingdom of God.

According to the calendar of the United States of America this is Memorial Day Weekend where we are supposed to pay homage to the Spirit of the United States that called upon young men and women and called them to serve their country and to go and fight to preserve our way of life from another way of life.

On this week-end there is a very struggle between the Spirit of God that wants to overcome all the divisions between nations and languages, so that all speak in their native tongue but all can understand each other, a Spirit of God to work to unite all people into the family of God and the spirit that wants to call its citizens to see God's blessings only on one people. God Bless the USA.  And we remember and give thanks to God for those who have been willing to die to preserve the USA.

And it appears to me that the battle will not even be a fair equal fight in the churches around the country

Spiritual but not religious?

I know I am not the only person who has heard that phrase a bunch of times. I am "Spiritual but not religious."  In fact I have talked about that phrase on this blog before.  But it was good to read in DEVIL'S INK: Blog from the basement office. by Jeffrey Pugh his observations. Dr. Pugh writes from the Devil's desk and is giving advice to young demons. (Much in the way C.S. Lewis did in Screwtape Letters.)

"Spirituality pursued without the community of faith is easily dealt with and dispensed. Discipline pursued in the community of faith makes them stronger and less susceptible to us."

 Spiritual but not religious means that you will follow your own spiritual compass. The Devil writing to young demons believes those people are easily knocked and corrupted.  Spiritual discipline pursued in a community of believers makes us stronger and less susceptible to the temptations of evil.

Tear in the Eye of Jesus

We do not have him around any more to crucify him again, but there must be a tear in the eye of Jesus as he hears the Rev. Charles Worley in Maiden, NC  talk about what he wants to do with Gays, Lesbians, and Transgender people.

Rev. Worley does not have to accept Gays and Lesbians as his friends. In fact, the insult to Jesus is in the fact that Jesus tells us to love our enemies. If Gays and Lesbians are the enemies of Rev. Worley, then his Savior wants Rev. Worley to love them and pray for them.  It is evident that Rev. Worley has not read all the parts of the Bible he claims to follow.

Lillian Daniels, minister of a church in the Chicago area, said in a speech in Atlanta last week, that she was getting tired of being asked to apologize and explain the actions of Christians whose beliefs she does not share.  But that is the harsh obligation of Christians as we share one faith, one Lord, and one Baptism, and what one Christian says and does affects all the rest of us.  Rev. Worley has put a tear in the eye of Jesus. He has given Christians everywhere a black eye, all because he cannot find a way to love his enemies as Jesus has asked us to do.

The Spirit of Truth

The Spirit of Truth is a gift to the people of God by God. Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will come and it will lead us into all truth.  The Spirit is a gift that is like the wind. It will come and push and move us in the direction of truth but it is not something that we can possess or control.

The Spirit of Truth is something that we submit to and follow but do not direct or determine.  The Spirit of God's truth is when we get so caught up and inspired by the Spirit that we "led by the Spirit."  The great temptation is to think that the Spirit of Truth is something that we can have and then use it to our own purposes. The way Insurance salespeople join the church in order to get membership directories.

The Spirit of Truth grabs us and moves us in the direction of living our daily lives as Jesus has described living. Blessed are the poor. Blessed are those who mourn.  So many of us read those words and say Amen over them, but then work as hard as we can not to be among them. Blessed are those who morn and we do all we can to afford seeing the pain, suffering and grief that our way of life causes.

Tom Long told about his good old South Carolina racists father, who was also a good old Presbyterian Elder. His father was made chair of a committee to shape the AARP's policy about integration of public schools. His father wanted to keep them segregated, but he read the Scriptures and studied the issue and the Spirit of Truth came upon him and he could not advise the AARP's to oppose integration.

The Spirit of Truth is a gift to lead us into God's kingdom of love for all people.  It is not something we can impose on other people.

The Cravings of Infinitude

St. Augustine claimed that our hearts are restless until we find our rest in God.  Others have suggested there is a "God" size hole in the human spirit.

Another preacher has said, "There is a desire in the human heart best described as the craving of infinitude. We are made that nothing which has limits satisfies. Hence the sense of freedom and relief which comes from all that suggests the idea of boundlessness -- the deep sky, the dark night, the endless circle - the illimitable ocean."  "Hence, too, our dissatisfaction with all that is or can be done."

There is an assumption that all humanity has this great hunger for some Spiritual reality.  Do you think that is there is still a "craving of infinitude" in our young people?

Religious Internet

A massive protest march is being planned by Jews to protest the Internet. The Ultra-Orthodox Jews want to hold this massive 40,000 person rally to warn people of the dangers of the Internet. The Internet is a highway of temptations and a strong protest needs to be heard to prevent people from becoming apostate. Such is their belief.

Seems to me that there are two major things that might be done. One is that all of those Orthodox Jews ought to get on the Internet and make sure that there is stuff on the Internet that they approve of.  There is a lot of bad stuff and rather than yield the battlefield to the bad stuff, they need to put on more of the stuff they think is good.

They should also develop their own web sites and link on those sites to other sites that they approve of.  Each Synagogue needs to develop a web site with their own good stuff on it, and they ought to identify for the people who read their site, other sites that the Rabbi recommends or approves.

It is not going away, and we can not prevent others from using it, so all religious groups ought to use it and put on it all the stuff they can that they think is worthy.

Source of Forgiveness?

One of the most frequently heard statements is that "Jesus Christ died on the Cross to save us from our sins. It is his death that makes forgiveness possible for us."  God sent Jesus into the world to save the world by his sacrificial death on the Cross.

I am not sure where I have been all these years, but the question was raised this week as we looked at the Psalms, what made it possible for God to forgive David and the rest of the people in the Old Testament? If God forgave David his sins and God forgave the children of Israel when they repented and turned to him, where did that forgiveness come from? How was that possible before Jesus?

If Forgiveness was only made possible by the death of Christ on the Cross, how did God forgive before the Cross?   Maybe the death of Jesus on the Cross is the clearest and best demonstration of the Forgiveness in the heart of God which Jesus shows to all the world?  Maybe?

Reviews of Churches

There is a church in Oregon taking a woman to court for writing and blogging a bad review of the church. Now I have always thought that that would be a great help to many people. Movies are reviewed, restaurants are reviewed, books are reviewed, why shouldn't church worship services be reviewed?

Now the woman made some comments that might have become personal attacks, but I think that a review of the worship ought to be legitimate. One could talk about the size of the buildings, about the friendliness of the welcome, about the kind and style of the music and hymns, did the service last longer than announced?  How much Bible was read in the service, one passage, two, three?  How many things were in the service, honoring Veterans?, or Boy Scout Sunday?,  Who was the focus of the prayers? Did God get mentioned or where the prayers about the people in the pews?  Did the sermon have anything to do with your life?

Those are enough good questions to make a good review and help people looking for a church home to have some idea about the church that was reviewed.

Everything Old is New Again

Everything Old is New Again

by

Rick Brand

Even the Roman Catholic Church has come around to apologize to Galileo. Some of the old wars between science and religious dogma have been settled and peace treaties have been signed.  There may be some people who still believe in the flat earth, but we do not teach that in school.  There are still a lot of old home remedies that are used, but most people still go to the medical community for treatment.

The two approaches to live: science and religion, have been in debate for a long time, and there are still very important areas where that debate may continue.  Is there a purpose for creation?  Are there signs of existence beyond death?  What is the nature and purpose of life?  When do we become Humans and when do we cease to be human?  Are we created to be in conflict with each other or is life meant to be cooperation?  But it seems to me that there is a very fast growing part of our society that is at war with science, and most of them are religious people.

There is the issue of global warming.  From all the literature I have read the majority of the scientific community is firmly in agreement that global warming is happening. Others want to call it “weather weirding” because winters are colder, storms seem to be stronger, tornadoes more violent.  Science can show you the data that the weather patterns are changing.   And most of those scientists are of the opinion that the changes are being caused by human activities.  But there is a very stubborn and vocal part of society that claims it is not happening. This is just normal weather variations.  We don’t have a long enough record to be able to say that humans are causing it.

There is an even greater and most hostile fight with science in the area of the origin of the universe. Science traces the beginning back into the millions of years and tracks the changes in temperatures, gasses, formations over those millions of years. The most avid of the religious people still hold out for seven days which often sound like 24 hour days.  The evolution of the earth and universe is an explanation from science that makes the best use of the physical data that has been discovered. 

If these fights between science and religion were just intellectual combat it would be less of a concern, but these issues result in policy decisions which will affect the whole of creation and which will also affect our nation’s place in the world. Asia, China, and Europe are already miles ahead of the U.S. in alternative energy research. Medical science has been slowed by the religious concerns about the use of abortion material for research. 

I am a person of faith, but the creator put us here to be stewards of this creation which means we are suppose to take good care of creation by using our best mental abilities.  Our minds are also gifts to us as humans. Faith wrestles for me with the question of from who did we come, why are we here, where do we go, what are we to do, and science explores how does it work, what makes it tick, what are the principles involved in its functioning. How can we use what we have learned to make creation safer and more enduring?

It saddens me greatly to listen and watch the constant battles between science and segments of the Christian faith.  But the old conflict seems to be new again.

Of the same family

I have been reading about Baptism. The man talking about Baptism is an English preacher in the middle of the nineteenth century. He suggested there were two traditions about Baptism: one Catholic which said that the sacrament took away the sin and made you a child of God. The other was Calvinist which said that the Baptism awakened faith in the believer and made a person a child of God.

This English preacher believed that both were misguided. That we were all children of God already and Baptism was just the public recognition of it.   Some people lived all their lives not knowing that they were children of God. Not knowing their family and some how trying to find out who they belonged to.  Others rejoiced, celebrated and enjoyed living in the confidence that they were children and joint heirs with all the rest of people.

That was what Jesus came to show us, to show us the Father. That we are children of the most high.  We can claim to be self-sufficient. We can rebel against the family. We can run away from home. That lots of people live and die never knowing or understanding that they are children of the Holy One.  But there are others who "name it and claim it" and proclaim it by baptism and by the way they live in ways that are pleasing to the Father.

See what love the father has for us that we should be called the children of God. That is a Baptism statement.  It is not that Baptism gives us a new identity, it is the mark and the means by which we claim the identity we already had.  Makes a lot of sense to me.

Both Sides

Considering how much time and attention people put into the products they market, I suspect that it was no accident.  The people who put together Sara Evans' cd called "Born to Fly" must have put them back to back intentionally.

There are two songs that speak volumes about the human heart. There comes up quickly on the album the song, "I could not ask for more."  "lying here with you, listening to the rain, smiling just to see the smile upon you face, these are the moments I thank God that I'm alive, I've found all I've waited for, and I could not ask for more. "  There other verses that repeat the same contentment and satisfaction with life. Life is good, and she is happy, and there is nothing more that is needed.

Until you get to the very next song which is "Something more."   "Just as soon as I get what I want I get unsatisfied. Good is good but could be better. I keep looking for something more.... I keep looking for something more, I always wonder what's on the other side of the number two door, I keep looking for something more."  A dissatisfaction with whatever you have, a restlessness for what you do not have.

Such is the constant condition of our lives. There are great moments when we thank God we are alive, and are content with life. But they do not last long because there is this other part of us that is always looking for something more.

They both speak to the reality of the spiritual dimension within us. That there are moments when we feel and know that we owe a word of gratitude and thanks to something or someone for what we have is more than we deserve. And there is that restlessness of the heart that Augustine and so many others suggest is a restlessness of the human heart to be filled with the presence and power of God.  There is a God size hole in the human life that makes us always discontent with all that is here on earth.

Oh, My, things fall apart!

On Easter Sunday in the New York Times the columnist Ross Douthat had a column entitled "Divided by God." He suggest that in the 1960's there was a religious core center that acted as one of the bonds that held society together. We were all primarily mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics. Now the country as a whole is much more religiously fluid, with more church-switching, more start-up sects, more do-it-yourself forms of faith. We are more and more a nation that is increasingly nondenominational and post-denominational. We are more and more "spiritual, but not religious." He calls us now a nation of heretics in which more people still want to claim the adjective Christian but want to give to that title their own definitions of the faith. Nobody can agree on what even the most basic definitions of what the Christian faith is all about. His conclusion is "The religious common ground has all but disappeared."

I suspect that is what has fueled so much of the fear and anxiety of the society today. There is a recognition that there is a dissolving of some of the bonds that held us together as a society, and people are very frightened about what might happen to us. There appears all these groups that are desperately fighting to put things back the way they were. Somebody says it all started to fall apart when they took prayer out of schools. Others say it started to crumble when gays came out of the closet. Some look at all the decisions that say government cannot support Christian calendar. No Christmas decorations in public places. No prayers that end in "Jesus' name."

When you add to this dissolving of the religious center, the dramatic changes in the economic world, where whole industries and manufacturing is now replaced with service industries, when you add the increasing number of other cultures and other ethnic groups coming into the country, the dramatic push of Jews and Muslims into places like the Bible Belt South, when you see what has been your whole way of life suddenly crumbling into pieces and you have no conception of what might replace it, you do become very frightened, very aggressive in trying to hold on to what you have, very angry at those who continue to push the programs and the trends that are threatening your little picture of life.

For me that is the great thing about the Christian faith. It has gone through these kinds of times before. The Early Church face many of the same kind of challenges. Augustine saw the collapse of the Roman Empire as a sad thing, and yet continued to believe that God would bring in a different and better way. The Reformation period saw very little religious unity and the complete reorganization of society, and yet Luther and Calvin were convince that all was in the hands of the great providence of God's love. I still think that at the core of the Christian faith is the unchanging conviction that things are never what they used to be, they are not what they are going to be, and thank God they are still in God's love. There is no fear in the changes because God is leading us always by His spirit into new trues and new ways. Rather than fight to preserve the old consensus which had a lot of problems and left out a lot of people, it would be a lot more faithful to try to help build a new social contract.

A Word of Encouragement

The Christian Century had a page story about "killer churches." They are the churches which have internal conflicts or dysfunctional members who chew up pastors and spit them out about every two years. Denominations and Bishops just keep sending preachers into the "lion's den."

On the other hand, there are constant articles on how congregations can help the minister in his work with them. There are good suggestions: pray for them, encourage them to take time away, volunteer for some of the work, and others.

But last Sunday there was a stream of people who came by and said the same thing and I was tremendously encouraged. They did not tell me what a great sermon I had. They did not say they liked the joke. What they talked about was the impact of the whole service. Almost to the person they talked about the whole worship experience. That was truly a blessing to me.

I would encourage members to consider encouraging your ministers by taking note and commenting on the whole service. I understand that for Protestant Christians the Sermon is the center point, but from my own experiences I know that much consideration goes into picking the hymns, that there may be hours spent composing or finding an appropriate confession of sin. The last Ernest Campbell who preached at Riverside Church in New York once said he spent a day on his pastoral prayers. Those of us who do write out our prayers put in as much time on the prayers per page as we do on the sermon.

Announcements need to be communicated to the congregation, but the fewer there are and the less time they take in the service the better the chance that the worship will be focused and appropriate.

If you want to give a word of encouragement to your pastor commend him on the other parts of the service as well as the sermon.

Fairness

I have been thinking a lot about how we look at life and how we evaluate it. Seems to me that we are constantly making a judgment about it on the basis of the present condition. Something like those jokes about the bar being only a foot wide, boo, ah, but 200 yards long. Yeah. We got a good health report, life is good. We got a bill from the IRS, life sucks.

Of course, there is really no way to know about how life is until the end. Because events keep happening which might change the verdict. But I also think that there is a kind of narrowness about our judgments. The woman who gets lung cancer was bitterly complaining that life is not fair because she had done none of the things that are associated with lung cancer. No smoking. No second hand smoke. She had eaten all the right foods to reduce your risk of cancer. Had not lived in an environment that was supposed to have cancer causing elements. Life was not fair. As if that was something horrible. It only happened to her.

But she was not thinking about the fact that she lived in a place where there was tremendous medical resources to help her. That there were women all over the world who had lung cancer who did not have access to treatment. That is not necessarily fair either. She certainly was not looking at the fact that she lived in a house that was twenty times larger than the homes of most of the people in the world. That was not fair either. But the unfairness of that is not a problem for her.

Life is not fair. But there are a whole lot more "unfairnesses" that are in our favor as citizens of the USA than there are against us. We do not really have much of a leg to stand on when we run into one of the unfairness and feel like complaining. Life is not fair and nobody should ever try to explain that it is. In fact the last great message of the Christian story is that God is unfair and unjust. His forgiveness does not seem to be given just to those who deserve it. Life is not fair. That CEO's get paid 400 times what a school teacher gets paid is not fair or just, but it is. But the school teacher gets paid way more than the field worker in Nepal. The field worker workers physically harder than either one of them. But what happen to Jesus was not fair on Friday and what happens to us in God's forgiveness is not fair either. But most of us do not complain about that.

Moving Towards Easter

The Journey through Lent is suppose to prepare us for Easter. Easter is the celebration, it seems to me, of the reality that the love of others which sacrifices self for the good of others triumphs over the evil of the selfishness of other powers. The love of Jesus for humanity, the willingness of Jesus to lay down his life, it was not taken from him, is vindicated by God's raising him from the dead. It is this reality that is to shape our own lives and actions.

Jesus said it was better to lose our lives in service than to gain the whole world. The Golden rule is to love others as much as we love ourselves. That what we want for ourselves is what we want for others. That continues to be a kind of dividing line for all of us.

There are those who struggle with their own selfishness and seek to the power and faith to work and hope for others the same kind of life they want for themselves. There are others who only want what they want for themselves. There are some who keep praying for the power to die to themselves, to sacrifice some of their ambition to make room for the ambition of others, to take some of their plenty ands give to some who have nothing.

There are others who have who only want more. There are some who think that those who are strong deserve to take from those who are weak. There are some who have many advantages who have no interest in surrendering those advantages for the welfare of others.

Easter does demand a great leap of faith to believe that those who sacrifice, those who die for the betterment of others, those who give what they have to those who do not have, are the ones who will arise in new life, are the blessed ones. When you look at the world around us, it seems obvious that only a miracle of resurrection could over come those powers of selfishness.

The Ref's Call

There are a few times when basketball games have given me examples of real ethical and moral choices.

There was a situation in Texas one year when a high school coach was faced with the need to coach his team to lose in order to qualify for the state tournament. I do not remember all the details but the team needed to lose in order to win. The big debate centered on whether or not it was appropriate in sporting events to play to lose. That presented the old question about when do the short term goals get trumped by the long term goals. "Is it okay to lie for a greater truth?" "Can you steal in order to feed your family?" "Can you commit murder of a tyrant for the good of the country?" Now certainly losing a game is not the same as murder, but in many ways the arguments are the same.

This week in the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament presented another challenge to the public. As I read about the ref's call and saw the replays, the situation certainly provide a lot of material for discussions. The game was between Syracuse, a number one seeded team, and the UNC-Ashville who was a number 16 seeded team. No number 1 has ever lost to a number 16 in the history of the tournament.

Syracuse was ahead by 3 points with about 30 seconds left in the game. UNC-Ashville was pressing Syracuse who was trying to get the ball inbounds. The ball was thrown to a Syracuse player near the side line. The UNC-Ashville player dove for the ball and collided with the Syracuse player. There are many who would make the case that the contact was a foul by the UNC-Ashville player. The ball clearly hit the hands of the Syracuse player. The ball went out of bounds. The official call was that the ball belong to Syracuse on the side line.

Years ago there was a rule that allowed the officials to call a "force out." The official could rule that the defensive played had pushed the other player out of bounds. The official could give the ball to the team that was pushed out of bounds. That rule has been removed, but it would have been a perfect rule in this situation.

The ref did not call the contact a foul. "Incidental contact" is a concept that has been emerging as a dominant response to a lot of contact in basketball over the years. But there have been many who have argued that the official used that "ignoring of the foul" as the reason for giving the ball to Syracuse for an inbound. The contact was not bad enough to justify calling a foul, but the "incidental contact" was the cause of the Syracuse player dropping the ball and so the ball should have been awarded to Syracuse.

There are others who say if the contact was not bad enough for a foul at that time of the game, then it should not have been a factor in the decision as to whom the ball was given and it should have been UNC-Ashville's ball. Thus giving UNC-Ashville another chance to try to tie the score or win.

We try to play life "by the rules" but that so often just is not possible. Two rules: foul or out of bounds and neither of them fits actually the situation and a judgment has to be made that makes no one happy. The officials would much rather see the game being decided by players on the floor making plays rather than making calls that give chances to score and change the game. The official in this case made a quick call that gave the ball back to Syracuse, did not call a foul on the UNC-Ashville player, and allowed UNC-Ashville thirty seconds more to try to make a play.

So much of life makes us all make calls that do not fit the rules. So many of the choices are somewhere in the middle between two or three rules. The desire may be there to be a straight shooter and always abide by the rules. We can even be dogmatic about "law and order" and "doing the right thing" but we only set ourselves up for disappointment and pain. The fact that we live between the rules means we need to be a lot more humble, a lot more gracious to others as they make their "calls" and a lot more open to the forgiven we need for the "calls" we make.

Goldman Sachs

Sour Grapes? Maybe. Management was not happy with his resignation letter. He sent it to the New York Times. A senior management adviser for Goldman Sachs resigned because he believed that the company he had gone to work for no longer existed. The culture of the company now was "toxic." That was his word for it. He claimed that when he went to work for the company they had their customers' best interest as their primary focus. How could they help their customers make money in the financial world. Now he claims that the only concern is how can the adviser make the most money for the company and himself. (herself as well). They joke and laugh about how to fleece the investor. They are urged to sell investors offerings or financial instruments that the company is pushing without regard to whether or not it fits the investors' financial objectives or fits into their plan.

He claimed that when he went to work for Goldman Sachs the idea was that if they made money for their customers the firm would make money. Now they just want to make money for the company and care very little about what happens to the investors. Such seemed to be the case in the subprime mortgage crisis.

The shift of focus from the investor to the company suggests to me that something like that has happened in so many of our Christian communities. People go to church with the hope of having an encounter with the Holy. They want a word from the Lord. They come seeking to be in the presence of the Almighty. The focus of the worship ought to be how can we be receptive to the presence of the Holy Spirit in our midst when it comes.

Holy Places are where God reveals Himself to us. "The Holy Spirit bloweth where it wills", and we are blessed when we feel the presence of the wind in our face. We keep returning to those places where the Holy has been experienced before. We cannot make it happen but we can make ourselves available to it. The more open and receptive, the more the spirit dwells in us, the more there is a readiness for worship and the holy, the more we are excited about being in that place and with those people. And others will come to share with us.

Have you ever noticed that it is not hard to draw a crowd to a place where somebody has claimed to see the face of Jesus or Mary in a soap dish, or a Pizza piece, or a spider web? People are eager to be in the place where the Holy has appeared.

But preachers, teachers, deacons, elders and others have this great desire to be helpful, to be of service, to do something, to make something happen, and so they begin to focus on the organization of the church. They start planning more and more programs. They begin to manage things. They look for new approaches, new music, new technology to make a "better service, a happier congregation, a more positive feeling.

Joining with others in the waiting and preparation for the coming of the Holy is not easy and does not always satisfy those who come because it does not happen every week on cue. Carlyle Marney, a great Southern Baptist, one said, "There are Sundays when even God does not show up for church." So the primary purpose of worship gets put aside and the focus moves to what we can control which is programs and activities and if we are luck fellowship. There is a focus on the members and how to manage their lives.

In forty years of ministry, I would probably be optimistic if I said I thought that we might have had 25 or 30 Sundays when it seemed to me that something holy and special was in the room. But that experience never happened any place but in worship with others. You keep going and waiting because it is the place where He said He would visit.

Not All In The Family

Like most creative and powerful human activities, there is much that training, effort, interest and hard work can do, but there is still an element of "giftedness" that makes a difference between good and great. You can be a good painter by hard work, but there is a "gift" needed to be a great artist. You can be a good piano player by lots of practice, but you need a special something to be special. You can be a good basketball player by doing lots of drills, but there are only a few exceptionally gifted players. You can be a good minister by hard work, but it is a gift to be a powerful and effective preacher. Some of us have tried very hard to be effective preachers, but have always known that we did not have the gift.

More often than not the gift is given to an individual and not to a family. The special talent is a "one and done" deal. Unfortunately, there are lots of cases where the children of the special talent try to follow in the gifted one's footsteps. I know this happens very often in religious circles. Without the gift, the results are not very satisfying.

This is not a new reality. "Now Eli's sons were scoundrels and had no regard for the Lord." Eli was a devout Priest for the Children of Israel back in I Samuel 2 of the Old Testament. Eli was a good priest, but his sons were self-indulgent and arrogant. The prophet's mantel does not fit very well of the prophet's son.

So perhaps it is not surprising to watch two recent developments of the children of the prophet failing to live up to the prophet's position. The Rev. Franklin Graham has been injecting himself into the political arena lately and not doing a very smooth job of it either. It is something his father managed to avoid publicly. Billy Graham obviously had a lot of impact on several politicians privately, but he managed to avoid getting caught in public debates over the faith of various candidates. Franklin has never had the preaching gift of his father and now has shown the lack of political finesse that his father had.

Even more recently have been the collapse of the Crystal Cathedral ministry of Dr.Robert Schuller. There were many of us who always doubted that Dr. Schuller was preaching the Christian message, but there was no denying that he had of gift of communication. It is the same gift that Joel Osteen is enjoying now. Joel Osteen is preaching the same positive thinking message as well. But the preaching of positive thinking was very profitable and effective for Dr. Schuller and the Crystal Cathedral as long as it was being done by Dr. Schuller. It was not a gift that was given to his family. His son tried to take his place, but he went to seminary and learned about Jesus and the church fired him because the son talked too much about this Jesus fellow. The next efforts were daughters and they could not reverse the downward spiral. The Crystal Cathedral has been sold the the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange County.

More recently Dr. Schuller and his wife have resigned from the congregation of the Crystal Cathedral, which he started, because they were unable to resolve the financial problems between them and the board of trustees. The congregation has filed for bankruptcy and the board of trustees must be trying to claim the writings of Dr. Schuller, the tape of the ministry, and all the tape promotional stuff as assets to be used to pay off the debt. Dr. Schuller and his wife wanted something to pay for housing and retirement for themselves. They were not working it out. Two of his daughters and their husbands have been fired by the board of trustees as well.

There is a specialness about the gift. It is one of those evidences of unmerited blessings that are given to us. The gift is given. It is not a possession. It cannot be transferred to our children. It is often wasted on promoting or encouraging the wrong thing, but it is a gift and it does not stay in the family. It can not be obtained by hard work. Some of us got a little better by hard work, but it was not the gift. And to be honest there is a little satisfaction to watch those who have tried to capitalize off the gift of others encounter difficulties. I am not sorry to see the Crystal Cathedral experiencing these difficulties.

The Haunting Bow - Genesis 9:8-17

The Chief of Police for Henderson and the Sheriff of Vance County were talking about it on Thursday night. The Republican Presidential candidates have been talking about it a lot. Governors and Presidents have it as one of their constant concerns. On Home in Henderson, on other blogs and web sites, it is a source of endless debate. It is absolutely necessary to do something about it. The question that is on everybody’s mind is how do we stop evil? What can we do to prevent crime, abuse, greed, and violence? We may not call it evil. We may not want to speak theologically loaded words, but that is what we are talking about. Evil, wickedness, meanness, hatred. How can we stop it? What do we do with those who do it? What kind of punishment works? How can we put things right? How can you limit, control, punish, discipline or correct those who do evil things so that they will change or cease the evil that they do?

I can still recall an episode of a Hill Street Blues television program. The segment was about two policemen who were a team, and one of the “bad guys” had caught one of the policemen alone and beat him up rather seriously. So the partner invites this bad guy out into the alley and with his boxing skills just beats the tar out of the bad guy, and I will never forget the kind of thrill and joy I had at watching that. I was completely surprised at how much satisfaction I got from watch that bad guy get his.

That is what evil to others does to us. The pain, the suffering, the viciousness of evil, the callousness, the indifference of the criminal, the complete selfishness of the criminal evokes from us a deep and passionate desire for revenge. Every day and every night there are stories of crime, violence, and suffering, and we cry out. This has got to stop. People lobby their leaders, build more prisons, give them longer sentences, lock them up and throw away the key. No wonder in some cultures with different laws they still cut off hands and multilate the criminal.

This deep sense of outrage, this reaction to evil is as old as life. This desire to nuke Iran, to destroy the evil ones. It is right there in our Bible, and goes all the way back to this story from Genesis. This reaction to evil even has its place in the heart of God. This reaction to evil has been a part of human history since we have left the garden. Almost from the very beginning. “The Lord saw that the wickedness of mankind was great in all the earth and every imagination of the thoughts of the hear was only evil continually, And the Lord was sorry that he had made mankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I”ll drown the bums. I will blot out mankind whom I have created from the face of the earth. The Story of the Flood is God”s own “Get tough on Evil” policy. No lethal injections, just forty days of rain.

But the heart of God just can’t be that vicious. The divine spark of mercy creeps in and there is the story of Noah and the rainbow. God just can’t give up the project of creation completely. God decides to keep just a tiny bit of creation alive and see if there isn’t chance that it might still turn out well. After the flood God makes a new deal with Noah. Not some legal contract, but a new covenant where both sides have obligations and duties. It wan’t negotiated. Noah did not send his lawyers to argue his side. It is a new covenant offered by God to Noah. This is a new arrangement offered by God to Noah. This is God offering to make a new relationship with Noah and his descendants to see if another approach might be more successful. This gift of the new arrangement with Noah is a new self-imposed obligation taken upon himself by God. It is spoken to Noah, but Noah never gets a chance to argue or respond. Sometimes you hear people say, “Well, I never asked to be born.” Well, Noah did not ask for this new covenant. He never gets a chance to say anything, and his opinion on the matter isn’t important. Nothing that is being promised in this covenant depends in any way on Noah, on creation, on you or me.

There was an amusing cartoon in the paper this week. God and Satan were standing on a cloud, and God says to Satan, “Yes, indeed, your idea was right. Talk Radio and Cable TV are destroying the world, but it is taking too long, I think I will go back to flooding.”

But that is exactly what God has promised not to do. God saw all creation covered with water. He saw the death and destruction of what He had created, he watched as so many of his creatures died in the flood, and the heart of God is filled with pain and sorrow. God comes to Noah and gives to Noah, to all creation to all living things the promise that He will never again do that again. God gives the assurance that He will never deal with evil with evil and violence. He will not flood the earth again. God tells Noah about the new decision he has reached. There are no maybe or perhaps. “I will never again cut off by water, I will never again flood. This is my promise to you and all living things, with all creatures, with every beast, with all birds and cattle. God wants to make that point over and over. I am not going to do that again. This is not conditional. There is nothing that Noah or creation has to do to preserve this promise. Nothing that creation can do to make God change his mind.

God has decided that he will not use force, destruction, suffering as a way to stop evil. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the late 1960’s found his campaign for human rights began to spread to include an anti-war element. He was protesting the war in Vietnam. When he was asked why he was getting mixed up in the anti-war effort, Dr. King said he had to. He said he gathered his people and told them about non-violence. He told them to refuse to return violence for the violence against them. That the evils of segregation could not and would not be overcome by force. That the hatred of the blacks could not be eliminated by the hatred of the white. He said that the young men and women he was talking to were the ones being sent by the government to go to Vietnam and to try to fight the evils of communism with force, guns, violence, and hatred of the gooks. Dr. King said, How could I preach Non-violence to my people and yet encourage them to engage in violence and destruction as a nation.

God says to Noah the same thing. I will never try to eliminate or control or punish evil,violence and wickedness with more destruction and violence. I will not flood the earth again. The great flooding of creation has changed the heart of God. Haven’t you noticed how our hearts are changed about a lot of things when New Orleans is flooded by Katrina, when Japan and Asia are hit by Tsunamis, when hurricanes come and flood New England, the way our thoughts and feelings are changed by the floods down the Mississippi? The flooding and the destruction changed the heart of God. Walter Bruggemann, of of the outstanding Old Testament scholars suggest, “What has changed is God. God has made a decision about the grief and trouble of his own heart. God has spoken that the relation between creator and creature is no longer built on the basis of retributive justice. God is no longer going to be the strict legal judge that gives an eye for an eye, an arm for an arm, a life for a life. Because the sadness and pain that God felt as he watched the flood happen, God said no more to that kind of effort to deal with evil. From now on the relationship between me and creation will be based on unqualified grace.” God’s assurance guarantees the continuation of the world and all living creatures, and that promise takes precedence over all theology. God just looked into his own heart and says to Noah that “I can’t stand doing that again.” I will not do that again.

It was a very long time ago. I guess I was about 9 or 10 years old. We were living in DeLand Florida, and for one Christmas I got a bee-bee gun. Just an ordinary Daisy bee-bee gun, but I imagined myself as the great white hunter. So in the midst of the cold and gray December, I took my new gun and some bee-bees and went out into a small sections of woods not far from the house. It was not long before I spotted a small sparrow sitting on a branch of a tree. I quietly stalked this little bird and got up to about six or seven feet from it. The bird was still on the branch. I aimed my bee-bee gun and fired. I hit it but did not kill it the first time. It fell to the ground. I was flooded with a sense of shame and guilt. I knew I could not leave it hurt, so I shot it a few more times on the ground. I buried the bird, and I put my bee-bee gun away. I vowed right then and there in those woods that I would never do that again. Never, ever do that again.

Now don’t come telling me about the benefits of real hunting. I know what I did was not sporting. I understand that herds need to be thinned. I understand that if I was starving I might do something different. But out of the pain in my heart at what I had done, I simply made a promise to myself, that I would never do that again.

The Flood did something to God’s heart which brought him to Noah, “...never again shall all flesh be cut off by waters of a flood and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.

To make sure Noah knew how serious God is about this, God said he was putting the Rainbow in the sky. The Rainbow is for his sake, not ours. God says he is putting that rainbow in the sky so that when He sees it He will remember this promise that he made and refocus his anger. He has put this bow in the sky to remind Him that he has made a promise to all future generations of living things. This is not just to Noah and to his family. This is a promise of preservation of creation for all living things. Everything that comes out of the art and everything that was affected by the flood. The Bow is the symbol of this self-imposed obligation that God will not deal with evil with evil. That God will not respond to wickedness with wickedness of killing and destruction.

The rainbow is a symbol of the promise of grace to us. It is memory devise for God to hold his anger back and to continue to deal with us in grace. It is the rainbow that needs to remind us as well that when we pray that God would come with lightning and strike that evil person we know, God is not likely to respond that way. That God has in fact determined that He will deal with evil by love, He will respond to our wickedness with grace, he will react to our violence with redemption.

God puts the rainbow in the sky as a sign of the dependability of creation. Seed time and harvest will continue. There is nothing in the Rainbow’s promise that means that we as humans cannot mess up our own nests, that we cannot ruin our own planet, that we cannot spoil our rivers and pollute our air, but the rainbow is the note on the refrigerator door to remind us that God will not respond to the evil in our world with His own evil.

The next time God decided to deal directly with evil, the next time God moved to redeem the world, the next time God came to overcome evil, God did not send a flood, God came a picked up a Cross.

Spiritual but not religious

There are a great number of people today in our society who describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious." That is an intriguing self description to me. I have had it explained to me that these may be people who have some conviction that there is a Holy, that there may be a Higher Power, that there may be dimensions and powers that are outside the realm of the rational and natural, but who do not identify with any organized body of believers. They do not participate in the traditional denominations. They do not endorse the standard expressions of creeds and doctrines.

I can appreciate very much that there are lots of people who do not find the standard worship of Christian congregations very satisfying. Heaven knows I have done my share of preaching boring sermons, and I have never been able to get added to my worship services any uplifting strong music, and the sitting still in pews is not very engaging. There may well be hunger for "God" that is present in the lives of many that is not being fed by what is being offered in many places of worship.

Yet the phrase still sounds a bit misguided to me. I have found three basic definitions of Religion: a set of beliefs, a particular system of faith and worship, and a pursuit or interest which someone has in a supreme being. Paul Tillich called God that which is our ultimate concern. It seems to me that if one has an interest in the spiritual dimension of life, she will have some definitions of what that spiritual dimension is and how it relates to her life. That would seem to me to fit in a set of beliefs. It follows to me that as I seek to respond to that spiritual reality that there are certain things I would do to encourage the flow of that spirit through me. In the biography of Steve Jobs, it was said that he reread the Autobiography of a Yogi every year to nurture his zen spirit. Those activities would be, in reality, the system of worship or the practice of faith. The things one does to express, welcome or develop that Spiritual dimension in life is a religious practice by definition.

I understand what the phrase is trying to express. I also think that it suggests a kind of vague and careless thinking about the spiritual dimension of one's life. If the phrase is serious and the idea of a spiritual reality is in their heart, and they have no religious response to that urging, if they do absolutely nothing to respond to that feeling or thought, then I guess it is an accurate phrase. I am reminded of the response one minister made to a man who said, "I can worship better out on the lake." The minister said,"But you don't. Yes, you could open yourself up to the Spiritual reality out on the lake, but the reality is you never even pause to give it a thought" Those who are Spiritual and have their own way of relating to that power have their own religion.

The Other

I read a quote that suggested that if your God liked everything you liked, and hated the things you hated, and wanted for you all the things you wanted for you, then you could be pretty sure that you have created God in your own image. Makes good sense to me.

Look at the stories in Scripture, both the Old and New Testament, of the many times that the prophet or the disciples are telling people things that they do not want to hear. Amos, Nathan, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jesus in the Temple, the disciples, Paul and the list goes on. Speaking words that the hearer does not want to hear. There has to be the presence of another will pressing against my own for there to be some reality to the mystery of God at work in the world. I am not God. God to be present needs to be other and over against what I want and seek.

But of course, it is just not that simple. If I am pro-choice, then the words of the pro-life people are messages that I do not want to hear. If I am pro-life, the thoughts of the pro-choice people are words that I do not want to listen it. If I am pr0-American, then the words of opposition from the Arab world are not acceptable to me. If I am more of a pro-world person, then the words of a patriotic American are not something I take seriously. So I do not want to accept that just because it is not something I want to hear, that it must be God's will for me.

Also if I want peace and happiness for all mankind, then I do not think it is God's will that turmoil, hostility and unhappiness afflict us all. Which seems to me that it drives us all back into the larger community of believers. It seems to me that the only productive way for us to listen to the will of God is in a large circle of believers who gather in the spirit to study the holy book. For me that is why "looking for a church home that fits our needs" is not helpful. Some where I have to submit my understanding of what is good, just and true about the Holy to the wisdom and spirit of others. Others have the same obligation to listen to the Spirit, the words, and what I think. That is why the church that tells me what I want to hear is not doing me any good. It is an on-going dialogue. The only difference from what we have going on now with different groups giving their different opinions is that it hardly looks like one side believes the other is really listening or caring what is side by the other. Neither side appears to be able to hear the struggle that is involved with the other side.

But I do know that God does not like everything I want and does not dislike everything I dislike. That I know for sure.