February 7, 2010
The hard work of covenant community…
February 7, 2010 (Epiphany 5 C)
SMC
Isaiah 6:1-8; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11
Song: Owl City, Fireflies (butcher paper) What is the feeling of this song? What’s it about?
I think it is about dreams…perspective…
Vision and the stories that inspire vision are powerful drivers for human beings. It was so for Isaiah, Peter and Paul—it is so for us.
Isaiah has a transcendent vision that transforms his life. It is a vision which peels back the curtain of separation between heaven and earth…between time and eternity. It is a vision of the Lord. In seeing the Lord, Isaiah also sees the earth in a new light. His own humanity—his unclean lips…and “where he is from”—a people of unclean lips…the earth full of God’s glory…
Think of a vision that has changed your life. Have you had one? I have. There wasn’t smoke or seraphs, wings or a
throne. The scene was quite ordinary—the back steps of the Philadelphia YES training center. A conversation… Out of that conversation on the back steps began to unfold a vision (of love) and a story that has transformed my life. Visions have a way of doing that. Visions and dreams pull us in with a power that transcends comprehension.
Isaiah and Peter tell us the same story—the transforming power of encountering the holy. In Isaiah the story is told in the idiom of vision. It is liturgical language—involving seraphs, wings, smoke, the throne of God. In Luke’s gospel it is narrative—involving ordinary fishing boats, nets…the sea.
Keep reading →
January 31, 2010
You challenge
our safe notions
of Righteousness
with your radical teachings
about who does or doesn’t
get stoned–
who gets included in your
kingdom movement.
You push buttons
in the Nazareth synagogue
by naming Gentiles—
The widow of Zarapheth
Namaan the Syrian…
as welcome recipients
of grace
Yet you do not offend our
modern categories
of righteousness.
We think somehow that we,
after hearing your radical message,
would not run you out of our congregation…
throw you off a cliff.
What would you say to us?
We who pick up stones
and label Others.
We who kill abortion doctors
in the name of preserving
the sanctity of Life.
We who cast sharp stones
at the apostate Liberal…
the fear-mongering Fundamentalist…
ever wary of the agenda…the slippery slope
the unclean Other.
What would you say to us?
We who find it impossible to
be in relationship with the one
who stands outside–
beyond the wall of hostility.
What words would you write
in the dirt at our feet?
fickle independence…
self-righteous indignation
with the sins of others…
conveniently justifying the decision
to break relationship
to pull out of communion
to move on to
the Next Thing.
Or would you call us–
in the name of Love–
to put down our stones
to go and sin no more?
January 25, 2010
January 24, 2010 (Epiphany 3C)
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Luke 4:14-21
SMC
Re-entry can be difficult in sometimes unexpected ways. The time after the holidays can be a bit like re-entry. The weeks leading up to Christmas are primed with energy…special activities and extraordinary expectations. Then we turn the page on the calendar, we take down the Christmas decorations and we try to get back into the swing of study and work. We re-enter the ordinary routine of life.
For football fans, this time of the year is a re-entry to life after football. For some of us that re-entry came sooner than for others.
We prayed for Ron and Regina this morning as they anticipate re-entry later this year after a service assignment with EMM in Peru.
And we have been praying for Haiti which faces an unimaginable time of re-entry to some kind of normalcy after the devastating earthquake.
Of course, re-entry requires that we come to terms with a new “normal” that looks nothing like the old “normal.” We return to places we have left (sometimes generations earlier) and things have changed. The buildings have changed. The people have changed. We have changed. And we are not quite sure where home is or what “normal” looks like. This is the challenge of re-entry for missionaries, soldiers, and post-exilic Israel. Keep reading →
January 18, 2010
Psalm 36:1-10; Isaiah 62:1-5; 1 Cor. 12:1-11; John 2:1-11
Epiphany 2C
January 17, 2010
SMC
This last week we have seen again the devastation of human suffering pressing up against our TV screens and into our hearts. Those voices who view this as some kind of divine judgment against sin, only add to the sense that somehow something is messed up in our world. We sense the groaning of creation and join in that groaning as we wait for the children of God to be revealed—for a more full expression of the redemption of all things through Christ (Col. 1:20).
What will it take to make things new in Haiti? We sometimes sing: “Would you be poured out like wine…would you be broken like bread to feed the hungry? The question is…are we willing to be made into good wine—to be poured out? Will our lives synergize with the new thing God is doing—bringing peace, healing and hope—or will they reflect the old chaotic, creaking order?
Our scripture texts this morning point to this reality—that through Christ God is doing a new thing. In a world of devastating earthquakes and a new year which brings reminders of the not yet of redemption in our lives and situations—we listen intently to this word of the possibility of a new name, renewed relationships, and strange signs.
The new thing God is doing through Christ invites us to become good wine. I offer this as a metaphor that is implicit in our texts. Salvation, healing and hope for the world—like the making of a good wine—involves a process. Keep reading →
December 21, 2009
Advent 4C
December 20, 2009
Micah 5:2-5a; Luke 1:39-56
SMC
“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” -Einstein
The stories surrounding the birth of Jesus have their share of special effects. There is the visitation of angels. There is the star that leads the magi from the east. There is the angel choir singing in the fields where shepherds were living. There are plenty of extraordinary elements to this story, but I am not so much struck by those this morning. What I am struck by is the shockingly ordinary way in which God comes to save—to deliver. I am struck by the smallness…the weakness of God.
These stories in Matthew and Luke are also filled with the ordinary. Incarnation is about being human. We see the human dimension in an anxious, pregnant teenager going to visit an older relative to find comfort. A baby kicks in a womb. Perhaps to fully grasp how it is that God delivers we need to state the obvious. Our text this morning takes us into the lives of two ordinary women—human beings like you and me. Yet, their response to God makes it possible for their lives to be the habitation of the holy—divine grace flows through their extraordinary obedience.
Keep reading →
December 13, 2009
Advent 3C
December 13, 2009
Zephaniah 3:14–20; Luke 3:7–18
SMC
The first sentence of Zephaniah’s prophecy pictures a cosmic catastrophe that results from divine judgment: “I will sweep away everything from the face of the earth” (1:2).
Between the first and last verses, at least twenty-five times Zephaniah mentions “the day of the Lord” or words close to it. He announces a coming day of destruction for all the oppressors of the earth. He compares these predators to ravenous wolves, and then envisions their destruction: “The wicked will have only heaps of rubble when I cut off man from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord. “The great day of the Lord’s wrath” (1:14) will be a day of bitterness, anguish, ruin and gloom.
This is our Text of Hope for this morning! How do we get from a message about God’s anger and judgment to the text we heard read this morning–where the Lord is rejoicing over his people with gladness?
Perhaps the answer to that question can be found in the story of Don Rabbit.
The moral of the story of Don Rabbit is, in fact, not so far from the message of Zephaniah and John the Baptist. In Zephaniah God’s people were chasing after Sexy Carrot in various forms. Here is God’s laundry list of grievances:
Keep reading →
December 3, 2009
1. Is Anabaptism inherently a dissenting stance? If so, does Anabaptism inherently deconstruct itself?
2. Is Anabaptism inherently a movement whose self-understanding (language frames) grows out of a reaction against the center as defined by 16th century Christendom?
3. In an increasingly post-Christendom context what is the center? Let’s concede that whether or not America is there yet, it seems to be the directional current of history in the West. How does this impact the way we frame and answer question #1?
4. Is Anabaptism inherently suspicious of faith formulations that emerged pre-Reformation (within Christendom)?
5. Is Anabaptism inherently localized communities of discernment (which accept the canon of Scripture)?
Keep reading →
November 27, 2009
It’s black Friday. The day when retailers supposedly move from the red to the black in their yearly sales ledger. Don’t think I’ll make it out into the shopping frenzy. We will be venturing out to fetch that central Christmas symbol in most American homes–the evergreen tree. Then the decorating. Setting the stage for an early exchange of Christmas gifts sometime today or tomorrow. We have moved up the calendar on these annual proceedings in anticipation of our trek to Peru in December.
So I am reading Lost City of the Incas (Hiram Bingham) in preparation for our family visit to Machu Picchu next month. Bingham is the Yale professor who is credited with discovering the lost Incan ruins north of Cusco during the early part of last century. Reading and thinking about the origin of civilizations. Like who lived in Peru before the Incas? And before them? And how did they get there?
Keep reading →
