Mini-sermon
Friday, September 26th, 2008By scripture we are INFORMED
Of wondrous acts that God PERFORMED,
So that, no longer CONFORMED,
The church can be REFORMED,
And we — and through us the world — TRANSFORMED.
Archive for the ‘Faith’ Category
Today
Saturday, August 9th, 2008Today is only the beginning
Of the eternal always
Which was and is and ever shall be
World without end, amen.
Today if you will hear his voice
He sets aside a certain day, calling it Today
Act today
Sing today
Love today
Give today.
There is no other day.
There never has been.
Now is the time.
Peace Scriptures
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008Crossposted from The Search for Integrity
9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth.
He breaks the bow, and shatters the spear.
He burns the chariots in the fire.
10 “Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations.
I will be exalted in the earth.”
Jim Wallis likes to point out the ironic fact that many people trained in teaching Bible in their churches seem to have missed the thousands of scripture texts that speak of God’s special concern for the poor. Similarly, many who have attended evangelical churches could easily, based on the teaching they hear, gain the patently false impression that the Bible rarely speaks of peace, and that the few places where it does do so, it is with disapproval. They repeatedly hear just a handful of seemingly relevant texts: “I came not to bring peace, but a sword” (in which Jesus is actually speaking, not of armed conflict but of the danger his teaching is to traditional family values); “They have healed the wound of my people slightly, saying ‘Peace’ when there is no peace” (Jeremiah’s assessment of the false hopes being raised by false prophets who, more interested in profits than real security, were insisting that the Babylonian army would fold up and go away if only the people kept up their armed resistance a little longer); and perhaps the incident in the temple where Jesus physically disrupts the profitable business of those who were taking advantage of the religious sincerity of others by spilling their carefully counted money on the floor and driving their merchandise (animals destined for slaughter) from the temple courts.
But in fact there are hundreds of texts throughout the Bible that teach about peace, its source and its place in God’s plan for the world, and it’s time that Christians everywhere stop being afraid of them. Below is a very small sample.
I’ll start with one that should be held at the ready whenever someone takes the saying of Jesus (Matthew 24:6-7) that “there will be wars and rumours of wars; see that you be not troubled, for the end is not yet” as proof that war is inevitable and will always be with us (which only makes sense if the end is always going to be “not yet”). Once too often I have heard someone put that out as a final argument against peacemaking, since “I believe the Bible!” Well, I believe the Bible, too, including….
Psalm 46, especially Psalm 46:9-10
9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth.
He breaks the bow, and shatters the spear.
He burns the chariots in the fire.
10 “Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations.
I will be exalted in the earth.”
The Words In Red
Matthew 5:3-10
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. 10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Re-Visioning
Saturday, April 5th, 2008This space is again freshened up with an updated back-end (WordPress 2.5) and a new look. How important it is to take a fresh look at everything familiar! On the day of this upgrade, with much attention being paid to the fortieth anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., I’m reflecting on the urgency of every day of life, and the fact that ordinary people, people like you and me, can make a difference. Had he lived, King would be an elder statesman by now, 79 years old. I wonder on such an occasion if it would have done more honor to the man and his legacy to annually remember the day of his death rather than the day of his birth. Less than 24 hours before a bullet ended his life, with uncanny prescience he mused upon mortality, and spoke in near-regretful tones of his own life and legacy: “I‘ve been to the mountaintop, and I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you…” A full generation later, that promised land of full equality still eludes us. Some, no doubt, have passed beyond the Jordan, and more yet have gazed from atop Mount Pisgah at what seems still so near, and yet so far: a place where the great ideals are not just respected but acted upon, where all God’s children can live together without being afraid of seeing each other take away what we have worked for. MLK spoke vociferously against the tripartate evils of racism, poverty and war, and understood that all three work against the freedom we hold dear. Racism is less entrenched, today, at least in law and public expression; but all who say so are quick to add that much more still remains to be done. Less boast can be made about poverty, and today the hope of eliminating war seems laughably out of reach. But here in this space, we will speak of the kingdom of God, the place where everyone is able to invite his neighbor to sit with him “under his own vine and under his fig tree, where none shall make them afraid” (Micah 4:4).
Jesus came proclaiming that Kingdom within reach, “at hand” — a kingdom where no one is hungry, so he fed thousands on a few loaves and fishes; a kingdom where health prevails, so he healed all the sick who came to him; a kingdom where love and reconciliation is the rule, so he taught about a Father who is merciful and expects his children to be the same; a kingdom where forgiveness is required of each subject, and not left as the optional prerogative of a stern monarch. Wherever he went, that kingdom came. He sent his apprentices out to proclaim in village and town, even where they were rejected: “Be sure of this, that the Kingdom of God has come near to you” (Luke 10:8-11). He taught them, and through them all of us, to pray for that kingdom to come, and in the fashion of Hebrew poetic repetition to repeat the sense of that prayer by saying (Matthew 6:10) “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The authorities thought that by destroying that king, whose kingdom was already in the world, though not of it, they could drive it out; but by triumphing over the ultimate means of destruction available to this world’s authorities, namely death, the good news was made available that the Kingdom has not retreated to a distant heaven or a far-away future, but is still here, breaking in to this world’s affairs wherever there are courageous people who are willing to bring Kingdom characteristics into their own lives, their own surroundings, their own world. Forgiveness, peace, the sharing of abundance, remain the means God has chosen to overcome hatred, prejudice, war, greed, and shortage.
In its fullness, in its final manifestation, the Kingdom has not yet fully come. But it is here, for those with eyes to see:
All Together, NOW!
Sunday, September 2nd, 2007The following thoughts were shared at the “Chew and Chat” held at the corners of Port Tobacco Road and Tayloe Neck Road, Nanjemoy, MD on July 31st, 2007.
I’m honored to be here and share a few thoughts with you today. We’re here to affirm and celebrate the value of community, to make it known that all of us understand the truth embodied in a certain passage of scripture. Paul the Apostle says in one place, that when one member suffers, all suffer together, and when one rejoices, all rejoice together. Just as this is organically true with a physical body, I’m here to tell you that for all of us this is not just something to think about, it is a fact.
Sometimes we don’t know why we suffer. We might have plenty of food, a safe place to sleep, good family, a well paying job, and we might feel like just so long as we keep these things, no matter what happens with anyone else, we’ll be fine. And we might even work to see to it that we keep what we have even if it means someone else doing without; but the result, the spiritual and dynamic fact is, that to the extent we contribute to someone else’s suffering, we increase our own. The Bible tells us that Jesus came with good news for the poor, but that good news benefits rich and poor alike, because all suffer together to the extent that any of us suffer.
Easter
Saturday, April 7th, 2007Today is Holy Saturday in the Eastern and Western churches
a day of silence
of waiting
of mourning
and of selfless service
therefore, a day for women
who do, so it seems, a lot of the above.
The sacred time between the crucifixion and the resurrection
when all paradoxes are at their peak
all contradictions brought into the open
the God of Life participating in Death
Holiness punished for sin
The eternal Word, silent
but on Sunday morning, not with fanfare and blazing glory
but in the silence of an empty tomb
a witness to a life unstoppable is born.
On “seeing the kingdom of God”
Tuesday, September 5th, 2006Words are so very important, and the right use of vocabulary is crucial to understanding what we or anyone else is talking about. One of my main interests is in trying to reclaim traditional, biblical language by pointing out what may be unfamiliar understandings of what it means — unfamiliar, but not novel, because what I’m wanting to do is clear away some popular misunderstandings.
The number of words needing such treatment are legion. The beginning-point is almost arbitrary, and the struggle to reclaim the traditional language for the power of a radical gospel it once represented is challenging indeed. We could start with that word “gospel,” for example: a simple word that means good news. It’s not, on its face, even a religious word;