So, as some folk know reading things in light of where they are in the canon is sometimes seen as a repudiation of textual criticism and part of a slippery slope toward literalism, fundamentalism, and ultimately primordial nihilistic chaos. Others simply think we've got these darn things in the order we do for a reason--because someone thought they made sense there.
Well, as I read the psalms in the morning and the evening I was recently struck by the placement of Psalm 88 and 89. Psalm 88 is kinda a downer, ending "My friend and my neighbor you have put away from me, and darkness is my only companion."
Then, the very next words we have, in Psalm 89 are, "Your love, O LORD, forever will I sing; from age to age my mouth will proclaim your faithfulness."
I guess, I like how these two psalms are placed one next to the other--the tension of abandonment and the promise that God will never abandon the house of David is kind of beautiful.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Gloria Luster--a member of St. John's in the news!
http://turn2channel.com/garden_of_hope/video.html
Sunday, September 20, 2009
My first sermon at St. John's: A Child Called It
A Child Called It
Today we find Jesus back on his home turf, Galilee, and in his home city, Capernaum. There he teaches the same message that he did last week in Caesarea Philippi. Last week we heard of Peter rebuking him for his description of the coming hardship, betrayal, death, and ultimate vindication of the Son of Man.
This week, it seems that the disciples get it. It seems like the disciples accept his message. It seems like they’ve learned their lesson.
But, it only seems this way. If we go on the way with them to
Capernaum, if we go down that road, we run into an argument. The
argument we find on the way was, “who is the greatest?”
Now, this phrase, “on the way” could be descriptive. In which case it is locating the disciples argument in space and time—they were on a road while arguing. Which is fair enough.
But when I look at this event on the page I note the location of this phrase, twice used, in quick succession. The first “on the way” and the second “on the way” practically rub up against one another like cricket legs. Their close quarters cause my mind to ruminate on this phrase’s significance.
And as I ruminate on this I find a similar phrase found in other
in Luke and Acts. “The Way” is used by other writers as a name for the followers of Jesus—“The Way” in fact was one of the earliest names used for Christians.
So, if we hadn’t noticed that those arguing about greatness were
disciples of Jesus that point is subtly re-enforced.
Simply put Christ’s calling to the cross and Calvary puts fear into the parts of the church that yearn for greatness. Luther once wrote, the cross,
“cures our desire for glory and power not by satisfying it, but by extinguishing it.” The disciples are afraid of their want and need for glory being extinguished!
Just as Jesus did not foretell his death on but one occasion, neither does he make this point but once.
So we move from cross and glory stood next to one another in order for cross to critique and extinguish greatness, to Christ’s words to all twelve of his disciples,
“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”
And what would this look like?--what does this look like?—when we people of the way reject vying for greatness, reject firsting the first and lasting the last, reject being served. When instead we first the last and serve all?
Do we perhaps become more inclusive? Do we become more ecumenical—no longer being swayed by the glory of denomination?
Do we look past the divisions within the body of the ELCA created at churchwide? Do we look the divisiveness of churchwide straight in the eye?
Do we look outside our walls and quietly, yet with confidence born of our own struggle take our faith to the streets? Do we engage more deeply with those already inside our walls?
As most of you know I’m new here, so I don’t know what firsting the last will and does look like here at St. John’s.
But I do know Jesus goes on and gives us and the rest of his disciples a concrete example of the last—a small child.
Reading this example plainly our imaginations conjure up images of gentle Jesus welcoming a child.
Oh yes, a child—unfettered by fear, lopping through the Swiss Alps, blond hair tossed by a gentle wind, maybe a yak bleating in the background—a distant yodeler calling to say all is well, all is okay.
That ain’t what Jesus is talking about. This idealistic and idealized “Sound of Music” expression of youth that has permeated much of western culture—is a very new image of children—an image foisted upon modern minds by the Philosopher Jean Jaque Rouseau when, in 1762, he published his book Emile. In this book he recommended that everyone should move to a farm, unswaddle their children, and let them run around naked.
Yet Rouseau himself could not live up to his own ideal standards. Instead of raising his five children he had them all committed to an insane asylum so that he could get back to philosophizing.
I’m sure this insane asylum was a brutal playground for Rouseau’s children. I also feel that the image of a child in an insane asylum more accurately portrays the life of the child who Christ embraced.
Look with me at verse 36 in todays gospel. You will notice the child is not referred to as he or she. Instead the child is an it. An object, not a person but a child called it.
In the ancient world infant mortality was a constant—kids died all the time. So there was no sense in assigning name or gender to a child until you were sure it would live.
Further, within Roman culture the first year of a child’s life was… sort of a trial run. The child lived at the whim of the family patriarch—the pater familias.
It is for this reason that there are so many ancient stories about “foundlings”—children taken from their home by their father… or more often by their father’s servant, and left out in the wilderness to starve or succumb to the elements. Oedipus—that famous man who killed his father and married his mother did so because he had been left out in the wild, but survived, and therefore knew neither his mother nor his father. The founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, were said to have survived their abandonment by being taken in by a she-wolf.
And I think anyone who has gone through high school PE knows that even today there is still as much “insane asylum” involved in being a child as there is Rouseau’s nude yodeling in the alps.
I know that growing up with a heart condition childhood wasn’t a bed of roses. I felt like I was the doctor’s personal pincushion. When the doctors would rattle off statistics about my likelihood of survival I often felt like Han Solo from the movie Star Wars—stuck in some impossible situation as C-3P0 announced, “The odds of survival are 725 to 1.”
I don’t think this anxious, existential, insane asylum aspect of childhood is unique to me.
I think about my first walk around the neighborhood. Mother Glenna, Deaconess Jane, and I were hanging out with the men who throw horseshoes after work and a young man darted by us all. Then a police helicopter appeared in the sky. Then police cars and a paddy wagon zoomed up Pimlico Road.
By the time the three of us got to where the commotion was the cops had one of the young men Mother Glenna knows well subdued on the sidewalk—because he had been fiddling with the motorcycle abandoned by the shooter. I imagine being on the receiving end of the cops like that makes you feel like an it.
Even today there is an essential itness to childhood.
And Jesus embraces the its of the ancient world on many occasions. Jesus is really serious about interacting with and helping children. In Mark’s gospel alone Jesus—Told Jairus’ little girl, thought dead, to “get up.” Jesus threw the Syrophonician woman a crumb by ridding her child of a demon. And in the verses just previous to today’s exchange about welcoming “one such child” Jesus, to a father’s cry of “I believe, help my unbelief” makes a son to stop seizuring, to speak, and to stand up!
And this is something his disciples continued. We were known in the ancient world for our ethic toward the least of these—the orphan, the widow, the sick, the lame, and the child. We were known for our stand against infanticide. In fact, this Christian tendency to be tender toward children, was noted by of all people Karl Marx, who analyzed religion in general and concluded it was simply poor people responding to their oppression, once wrote, “We can forgive Christians much, for they taught us to love our children.”
And even today this ethic of service to the least of these is still alive in Christ’s body, the church. It is manifest in the Roman Catholic position on abortion and the Unitarian’s OWL program. It is found in Diakon Lutheran Social Ministries. The ELCA’s Malaria initiative and the hunger appeal.
And even here in this church, here at St. John’s, we follow Jesus. Between the programs run across the street at the Pimlico Road Arts and Community Center and the Pimlico Road Youth Program down the street next to Holy Nativity over 200 children from the community are being cared for—are being embraced by this Christian community.
For that matter I’d imagine being hungry, and being addicted, both can carry a certain stigma—and can lead to a certain amount of it-ness. And we are ministering to that reality too, with our food pantry and the NA meetings that go on in our basement daily.
Isn’t this a wonderful expression of the ELCA’s motto, “God’s work, our hands.”
--
In serving the “its” the stigmatized and disempowered, “a child such at this,” we are doing a great thing. But let us press a little deeper, maybe connecting Jesus’ words about how in doing this type of welcome we are in fact welcoming him, and in welcoming him welcoming God—connecting them to his words about his own death.
Jesus is saying we find God in the it! This is the very definition of “Theology of the Cross.” Finding God in the last place we would look! The eternal subject, the creator of all objects, is found as, and in, an it!
God is found in the tentative, weak, fleshy, person of a child—a child called it, it the son of Mary. It, this son who points to his coming death. It this man dead on a cross!
Oh yes, the itness of Christ, “cures the desire for glory” extinguishing it that he may “exult us in his mercy, giving us a home.”
In the cross we are stripped of any pretention and this image of God as it, as child, is flipped as it is revealed to us. At the foot of the cross we are moved from despair about our own itness into confidence in God’s mercy and solidarity with us.
Not only am I entertaining God by welcoming a child called it—I also become that child—taken in by God, held in the weakness of his mighty grace, embraced not because I earned it, not because of any merit of my own, but because that is the thrust of God’s heart!
And because of this I can not help but sing:
He’s done so much for me, I can not tell it all.
He washed my sin away, I can not tell it all.
He walks and talks with me, I can not tell it all
He gave me victory, I can not tell it all
I can not tell it all, I can not tell it all
Amen and Alleluia.
Today we find Jesus back on his home turf, Galilee, and in his home city, Capernaum. There he teaches the same message that he did last week in Caesarea Philippi. Last week we heard of Peter rebuking him for his description of the coming hardship, betrayal, death, and ultimate vindication of the Son of Man.
This week, it seems that the disciples get it. It seems like the disciples accept his message. It seems like they’ve learned their lesson.
But, it only seems this way. If we go on the way with them to
Capernaum, if we go down that road, we run into an argument. The
argument we find on the way was, “who is the greatest?”
Now, this phrase, “on the way” could be descriptive. In which case it is locating the disciples argument in space and time—they were on a road while arguing. Which is fair enough.
But when I look at this event on the page I note the location of this phrase, twice used, in quick succession. The first “on the way” and the second “on the way” practically rub up against one another like cricket legs. Their close quarters cause my mind to ruminate on this phrase’s significance.
And as I ruminate on this I find a similar phrase found in other
in Luke and Acts. “The Way” is used by other writers as a name for the followers of Jesus—“The Way” in fact was one of the earliest names used for Christians.
So, if we hadn’t noticed that those arguing about greatness were
disciples of Jesus that point is subtly re-enforced.
Simply put Christ’s calling to the cross and Calvary puts fear into the parts of the church that yearn for greatness. Luther once wrote, the cross,
“cures our desire for glory and power not by satisfying it, but by extinguishing it.” The disciples are afraid of their want and need for glory being extinguished!
Just as Jesus did not foretell his death on but one occasion, neither does he make this point but once.
So we move from cross and glory stood next to one another in order for cross to critique and extinguish greatness, to Christ’s words to all twelve of his disciples,
“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”
And what would this look like?--what does this look like?—when we people of the way reject vying for greatness, reject firsting the first and lasting the last, reject being served. When instead we first the last and serve all?
Do we perhaps become more inclusive? Do we become more ecumenical—no longer being swayed by the glory of denomination?
Do we look past the divisions within the body of the ELCA created at churchwide? Do we look the divisiveness of churchwide straight in the eye?
Do we look outside our walls and quietly, yet with confidence born of our own struggle take our faith to the streets? Do we engage more deeply with those already inside our walls?
As most of you know I’m new here, so I don’t know what firsting the last will and does look like here at St. John’s.
But I do know Jesus goes on and gives us and the rest of his disciples a concrete example of the last—a small child.
Reading this example plainly our imaginations conjure up images of gentle Jesus welcoming a child.
Oh yes, a child—unfettered by fear, lopping through the Swiss Alps, blond hair tossed by a gentle wind, maybe a yak bleating in the background—a distant yodeler calling to say all is well, all is okay.
That ain’t what Jesus is talking about. This idealistic and idealized “Sound of Music” expression of youth that has permeated much of western culture—is a very new image of children—an image foisted upon modern minds by the Philosopher Jean Jaque Rouseau when, in 1762, he published his book Emile. In this book he recommended that everyone should move to a farm, unswaddle their children, and let them run around naked.
Yet Rouseau himself could not live up to his own ideal standards. Instead of raising his five children he had them all committed to an insane asylum so that he could get back to philosophizing.
I’m sure this insane asylum was a brutal playground for Rouseau’s children. I also feel that the image of a child in an insane asylum more accurately portrays the life of the child who Christ embraced.
Look with me at verse 36 in todays gospel. You will notice the child is not referred to as he or she. Instead the child is an it. An object, not a person but a child called it.
In the ancient world infant mortality was a constant—kids died all the time. So there was no sense in assigning name or gender to a child until you were sure it would live.
Further, within Roman culture the first year of a child’s life was… sort of a trial run. The child lived at the whim of the family patriarch—the pater familias.
It is for this reason that there are so many ancient stories about “foundlings”—children taken from their home by their father… or more often by their father’s servant, and left out in the wilderness to starve or succumb to the elements. Oedipus—that famous man who killed his father and married his mother did so because he had been left out in the wild, but survived, and therefore knew neither his mother nor his father. The founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, were said to have survived their abandonment by being taken in by a she-wolf.
And I think anyone who has gone through high school PE knows that even today there is still as much “insane asylum” involved in being a child as there is Rouseau’s nude yodeling in the alps.
I know that growing up with a heart condition childhood wasn’t a bed of roses. I felt like I was the doctor’s personal pincushion. When the doctors would rattle off statistics about my likelihood of survival I often felt like Han Solo from the movie Star Wars—stuck in some impossible situation as C-3P0 announced, “The odds of survival are 725 to 1.”
I don’t think this anxious, existential, insane asylum aspect of childhood is unique to me.
I think about my first walk around the neighborhood. Mother Glenna, Deaconess Jane, and I were hanging out with the men who throw horseshoes after work and a young man darted by us all. Then a police helicopter appeared in the sky. Then police cars and a paddy wagon zoomed up Pimlico Road.
By the time the three of us got to where the commotion was the cops had one of the young men Mother Glenna knows well subdued on the sidewalk—because he had been fiddling with the motorcycle abandoned by the shooter. I imagine being on the receiving end of the cops like that makes you feel like an it.
Even today there is an essential itness to childhood.
And Jesus embraces the its of the ancient world on many occasions. Jesus is really serious about interacting with and helping children. In Mark’s gospel alone Jesus—Told Jairus’ little girl, thought dead, to “get up.” Jesus threw the Syrophonician woman a crumb by ridding her child of a demon. And in the verses just previous to today’s exchange about welcoming “one such child” Jesus, to a father’s cry of “I believe, help my unbelief” makes a son to stop seizuring, to speak, and to stand up!
And this is something his disciples continued. We were known in the ancient world for our ethic toward the least of these—the orphan, the widow, the sick, the lame, and the child. We were known for our stand against infanticide. In fact, this Christian tendency to be tender toward children, was noted by of all people Karl Marx, who analyzed religion in general and concluded it was simply poor people responding to their oppression, once wrote, “We can forgive Christians much, for they taught us to love our children.”
And even today this ethic of service to the least of these is still alive in Christ’s body, the church. It is manifest in the Roman Catholic position on abortion and the Unitarian’s OWL program. It is found in Diakon Lutheran Social Ministries. The ELCA’s Malaria initiative and the hunger appeal.
And even here in this church, here at St. John’s, we follow Jesus. Between the programs run across the street at the Pimlico Road Arts and Community Center and the Pimlico Road Youth Program down the street next to Holy Nativity over 200 children from the community are being cared for—are being embraced by this Christian community.
For that matter I’d imagine being hungry, and being addicted, both can carry a certain stigma—and can lead to a certain amount of it-ness. And we are ministering to that reality too, with our food pantry and the NA meetings that go on in our basement daily.
Isn’t this a wonderful expression of the ELCA’s motto, “God’s work, our hands.”
--
In serving the “its” the stigmatized and disempowered, “a child such at this,” we are doing a great thing. But let us press a little deeper, maybe connecting Jesus’ words about how in doing this type of welcome we are in fact welcoming him, and in welcoming him welcoming God—connecting them to his words about his own death.
Jesus is saying we find God in the it! This is the very definition of “Theology of the Cross.” Finding God in the last place we would look! The eternal subject, the creator of all objects, is found as, and in, an it!
God is found in the tentative, weak, fleshy, person of a child—a child called it, it the son of Mary. It, this son who points to his coming death. It this man dead on a cross!
Oh yes, the itness of Christ, “cures the desire for glory” extinguishing it that he may “exult us in his mercy, giving us a home.”
In the cross we are stripped of any pretention and this image of God as it, as child, is flipped as it is revealed to us. At the foot of the cross we are moved from despair about our own itness into confidence in God’s mercy and solidarity with us.
Not only am I entertaining God by welcoming a child called it—I also become that child—taken in by God, held in the weakness of his mighty grace, embraced not because I earned it, not because of any merit of my own, but because that is the thrust of God’s heart!
And because of this I can not help but sing:
He’s done so much for me, I can not tell it all.
He washed my sin away, I can not tell it all.
He walks and talks with me, I can not tell it all
He gave me victory, I can not tell it all
I can not tell it all, I can not tell it all
Amen and Alleluia.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
All the King’s Men 1949—All the King’s Men 2006
Well, I’ve watched both versions of one of my favorite books, All the King’s Men. The newer one is of course prettier and more stylized, but I would say the 1949 version is more faithful to the book.
Further what is at stake for the characters is more clearly apparent in the 1949 version. You can see how goodie-two-shoes Willie Stark became the corrupt and philandering man he became. Further, the pain caused by his philandering, both to his wife, Lucy, and to his personal assistant, Sadie, who he first cheated with, is much more apparent. True, we don’t get to see Stark’s dalliance with the stripper on skates as we do in the 2006 version, but we do get to see Sadie’s grief over being rejected and replaced by Willie on account of her looks.
Overall I would say the 1949 version gets the story right. It does not just focus on Willie and Jack’s relationship (the point of view character and Willie’s muckraker), but on the myriad of emotions and drives of all the characters.
The only superiorities of the 2006 edition are the foreshadowing of violence by “sugar boy,” Willie’s hired gun, the inclusion of Jack’s question about Willie winking at him when they first meet, and highlighting the Judge’s affinity for model catapults and other ancient projectile weapons.
Further what is at stake for the characters is more clearly apparent in the 1949 version. You can see how goodie-two-shoes Willie Stark became the corrupt and philandering man he became. Further, the pain caused by his philandering, both to his wife, Lucy, and to his personal assistant, Sadie, who he first cheated with, is much more apparent. True, we don’t get to see Stark’s dalliance with the stripper on skates as we do in the 2006 version, but we do get to see Sadie’s grief over being rejected and replaced by Willie on account of her looks.
Overall I would say the 1949 version gets the story right. It does not just focus on Willie and Jack’s relationship (the point of view character and Willie’s muckraker), but on the myriad of emotions and drives of all the characters.
The only superiorities of the 2006 edition are the foreshadowing of violence by “sugar boy,” Willie’s hired gun, the inclusion of Jack’s question about Willie winking at him when they first meet, and highlighting the Judge’s affinity for model catapults and other ancient projectile weapons.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
The testimony of a traditionalist who is not leaving the ELCA
David Yeago: In the Aftermath
IN THE AFTERMATH
Reflections Following the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly
HOW DO WE LIVE NOW?
I’m writing for those who share with me the conviction that the actions taken by the Assembly on human sexuality constitute a theological, ethical, ecclesiological, and ecumenical disaster of immense proportions. I’m not going to make the case for viewing those actions in that way; that has been done repeatedly and very capably by others in the debates that preceded the Assembly. I am writing for those who are already convinced, whom I will call traditionalists....
Click the link, read the whole thing, its pretty good.
IN THE AFTERMATH
Reflections Following the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly
HOW DO WE LIVE NOW?
I’m writing for those who share with me the conviction that the actions taken by the Assembly on human sexuality constitute a theological, ethical, ecclesiological, and ecumenical disaster of immense proportions. I’m not going to make the case for viewing those actions in that way; that has been done repeatedly and very capably by others in the debates that preceded the Assembly. I am writing for those who are already convinced, whom I will call traditionalists....
Click the link, read the whole thing, its pretty good.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
My Baltimore Baptism
Well, when I realized I was coming to B’more I prayed to God that I would be shaped and changed by my experience here. Prayers are being answered I suppose.
So far I’ve seen the aftereffects of a shooting and the massive show of force by the police that followed (including what nearly was the wrongful arrest of a youngster), and the further alienation of the neighborhood toward the cops that followed. I’ve turned a man away from the church doors who was asking for money. And now I’ve been mugged less than 12 feet from my apartment.
One of my parishners said it best, “this is your Baltimore Baptism.”
So far I’ve seen the aftereffects of a shooting and the massive show of force by the police that followed (including what nearly was the wrongful arrest of a youngster), and the further alienation of the neighborhood toward the cops that followed. I’ve turned a man away from the church doors who was asking for money. And now I’ve been mugged less than 12 feet from my apartment.
One of my parishners said it best, “this is your Baltimore Baptism.”
Friday, September 11, 2009
When the personal is political the people perish
So we've got some nut jobs out there...
Tiller was killed because of abortion, Pouillon was likely killed for the same reason just on the opposite side of the issue.
Rep. Wilson acted like a twelve year old at a middle school assembly, people send out political "humor" and rumor that could be construed as hate speech.
Why?
I don't know, but one guess would be that it involves the way Americans have come to perceive themselves. They perceive some part of their self as a political thing. Our partisan identity and our personal identity have merged. What our party affiliation is impacts the soul. The personal is political and the political personal.
It would be downright stupid to kill someone because of an opinion they hold that is different than my opinion, but if this opinion is more than an opinion, if it is a shard of one's soul, then that's a different story. If I am a child of the light because I'm "blue" then those who are "red" are children of darkness.
Its like we've knocked apart the door between cosmology and ideology.
I don't know. I'm sure its always been like this and I'm just showing my naive youth, but seeing people killing and hating other people for any reason just digs into me in a bad way... and you all know I'm fairly partisan.
Tiller was killed because of abortion, Pouillon was likely killed for the same reason just on the opposite side of the issue.
Rep. Wilson acted like a twelve year old at a middle school assembly, people send out political "humor" and rumor that could be construed as hate speech.
Why?
I don't know, but one guess would be that it involves the way Americans have come to perceive themselves. They perceive some part of their self as a political thing. Our partisan identity and our personal identity have merged. What our party affiliation is impacts the soul. The personal is political and the political personal.
It would be downright stupid to kill someone because of an opinion they hold that is different than my opinion, but if this opinion is more than an opinion, if it is a shard of one's soul, then that's a different story. If I am a child of the light because I'm "blue" then those who are "red" are children of darkness.
Its like we've knocked apart the door between cosmology and ideology.
I don't know. I'm sure its always been like this and I'm just showing my naive youth, but seeing people killing and hating other people for any reason just digs into me in a bad way... and you all know I'm fairly partisan.
Apparently it is the parents who are smoking pot
More Americans over age 50 are smoking marijuana than ever before. Are my parents among them?
By Daniel Engber
At the time, Mom's question caught me by surprise: "Have you ever tried marijuana?" she asked, sloshing her coffee around in a mug as we stood together in the kitchen. My mind went blank. Could this be the fabled "drug talk" that parents are supposed to give to their teenage children? If so, why was I getting it at 30?
It turned out my mother was less interested in my drug use than her own. When I told her I'd smoked pot in college, and a bunch of times since, she took the news in stride. The thing was, she and my father were hoping to score some weed. Did I know anybody?
... and it goes on, ending...
My parents didn't seem perturbed by this doctor's warning. Nor were they put off by my cautionary tale about the 65-year-old grandma who'd recently been caught with 33 pounds of premium marijuana in the trunk of her car. I tried to nag them, but they were pretty mellow about the whole thing.
By Daniel Engber
At the time, Mom's question caught me by surprise: "Have you ever tried marijuana?" she asked, sloshing her coffee around in a mug as we stood together in the kitchen. My mind went blank. Could this be the fabled "drug talk" that parents are supposed to give to their teenage children? If so, why was I getting it at 30?
It turned out my mother was less interested in my drug use than her own. When I told her I'd smoked pot in college, and a bunch of times since, she took the news in stride. The thing was, she and my father were hoping to score some weed. Did I know anybody?
... and it goes on, ending...
My parents didn't seem perturbed by this doctor's warning. Nor were they put off by my cautionary tale about the 65-year-old grandma who'd recently been caught with 33 pounds of premium marijuana in the trunk of her car. I tried to nag them, but they were pretty mellow about the whole thing.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
What do you do with the Sob Story?
This evening a man came to the door of the church with a sob story and asking for 7 bucks for bus fare. He sounded legit, but I’ve heard a lot of people looking for certain amounts of money for bus fare, especially back in Eugene the homeless (and anarchist… coincidence? I think not) capital of the US.
Well, firstly I didn’t have 7 bucks on me, but secondly I wasn’t sure if he was legit. So I went in and explained the situation to the church musician. He saw the number one concern in that situation to be my safety (which is good sense).
So we went back out and all we could offer the man was a prayer.
Seems like weak sauce to me.
Well, firstly I didn’t have 7 bucks on me, but secondly I wasn’t sure if he was legit. So I went in and explained the situation to the church musician. He saw the number one concern in that situation to be my safety (which is good sense).
So we went back out and all we could offer the man was a prayer.
Seems like weak sauce to me.
Sunday, September 06, 2009
My first prayers at St. John's
With the whole people of God in Christ Jesus, let us pray for the Church, those in need, and all of God’s creation.
Gracious Father, we pray for the Church universal. Fill it with all truth and peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in anything it is amiss, reform it; where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in need, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it.
We pray especially for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as we struggle to remain faithful to you and to one another despite our clashes of conscience regarding the ordination of homosexuals in chaste and publically accountable relationships. Speak to us Lord your words Ephetha, that our ears may hear where those we disagree with are coming from and open our mouths that we may speak gracious and meaningful words to one another.
Lord in your mercy—Hear our prayer
Caster of creation, sculptor of worlds, we thank you for this planet and all living things on it, fish and fauna, creeping things and all kinds of creatures. For forests and plains, cities and barren places. We pray that we might be better stewards of our home here.
Lord in your mercy—Hear our prayer
King of Kings, we thank you for our elected leaders and we pray for them as they discuss sickness and health. May they act wisely and justly.
Lord in your mercy—Hear our prayer
Healer of our every ill we hear the magnificent images of wholeness in Isaiah’s description of his people’s return to the Promised Land. Yet so many in this city, this country, and this world can only say to you, “Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And so we lift up their cries to you.
The cries of those victims of violence, of shootings and arsons. The cries of the unemployed, the homeless, the imprisoned, the sick, depressed, lonely, shut in, addicted, and mentally ill. The cries of those trapped by social and economic forces—the cries of folk whose countries are war zones and their governments repress and even kill them. Lord we lift to you all those in need.
Lord in your mercy—Hear our prayer
And Lord, at this time I ask this assembly to raise any concerns to you either aloud or in silence.
Into your hands, gracious God, we commend all for whom we pray, trusting in your mercy; through Jesus Christ, our Savior.
Gracious Father, we pray for the Church universal. Fill it with all truth and peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in anything it is amiss, reform it; where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in need, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it.
We pray especially for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as we struggle to remain faithful to you and to one another despite our clashes of conscience regarding the ordination of homosexuals in chaste and publically accountable relationships. Speak to us Lord your words Ephetha, that our ears may hear where those we disagree with are coming from and open our mouths that we may speak gracious and meaningful words to one another.
Lord in your mercy—Hear our prayer
Caster of creation, sculptor of worlds, we thank you for this planet and all living things on it, fish and fauna, creeping things and all kinds of creatures. For forests and plains, cities and barren places. We pray that we might be better stewards of our home here.
Lord in your mercy—Hear our prayer
King of Kings, we thank you for our elected leaders and we pray for them as they discuss sickness and health. May they act wisely and justly.
Lord in your mercy—Hear our prayer
Healer of our every ill we hear the magnificent images of wholeness in Isaiah’s description of his people’s return to the Promised Land. Yet so many in this city, this country, and this world can only say to you, “Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And so we lift up their cries to you.
The cries of those victims of violence, of shootings and arsons. The cries of the unemployed, the homeless, the imprisoned, the sick, depressed, lonely, shut in, addicted, and mentally ill. The cries of those trapped by social and economic forces—the cries of folk whose countries are war zones and their governments repress and even kill them. Lord we lift to you all those in need.
Lord in your mercy—Hear our prayer
And Lord, at this time I ask this assembly to raise any concerns to you either aloud or in silence.
Into your hands, gracious God, we commend all for whom we pray, trusting in your mercy; through Jesus Christ, our Savior.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Dr. Timothy J. Wengert on a biblical foundation for the decision in Minneapolis
1] If there is one rule we need to follow in the wake of the ELCA Churchwide Assembly, it is this: Do not break the eighth commandment (against false witness) in order to defend the sixth (against adultery and other sexual sins). Both those who supported the changes in policy and those who did not need to remember this. We must speak what we know and not cast aspersions on those who disagreed with us. Luther’s comments on the eighth commandment in the Large Catechism are helpful here. Even when forced by one’s office to speak out, one must not lie or distort the truth.
[2] In light of some implied (and explicit) attacks on the decision, however, it is also necessary to make one thing clear. The change in policy was grounded in Scripture. In fact, the calls for justice toward gays and lesbians in committed relationships and the recitation of examples of healthy same-gender relations, as important as these are to some folk, finally do not in themselves constitute a complete standard for changing church policy, since even calls for justice must for Christians be grounded in and normed by sound interpretations of Scripture as God’s Word for us....
And it goes on. I'd read it, Dr. Dubya is good folk, thinks things through,tries to be fair.
[2] In light of some implied (and explicit) attacks on the decision, however, it is also necessary to make one thing clear. The change in policy was grounded in Scripture. In fact, the calls for justice toward gays and lesbians in committed relationships and the recitation of examples of healthy same-gender relations, as important as these are to some folk, finally do not in themselves constitute a complete standard for changing church policy, since even calls for justice must for Christians be grounded in and normed by sound interpretations of Scripture as God’s Word for us....
And it goes on. I'd read it, Dr. Dubya is good folk, thinks things through,tries to be fair.
Friday, September 04, 2009
Cats... in sinks
Its good to know my cat isn't the only one who has a sink fixation. Seriously, if I'm in the bathroom she's either in the sink or the tub.
In other cat news I took Simul to the vet today, she was a hell raiser, took out half the veterinarian staff and got her ears cleaned in the process.
Oh, and the whole Vicar thing is going well so far. Right now I'm contemplating the role of the police in an inner-city context. More on that later.
Peace,
Chris
In other cat news I took Simul to the vet today, she was a hell raiser, took out half the veterinarian staff and got her ears cleaned in the process.
Oh, and the whole Vicar thing is going well so far. Right now I'm contemplating the role of the police in an inner-city context. More on that later.
Peace,
Chris
Sunday, August 30, 2009
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