tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21331236983684381992024-03-12T19:35:23.750-04:00One Step Closer: Religion & Popular CultureKurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.comBlogger337125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-64423595827293658322020-03-29T09:26:00.003-04:002020-03-29T09:26:30.991-04:00More than raising a dead man<div class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">“Lazarus, come out!”</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">They are arguably the most dramatic words that are said in any of the Gospels, cried out by Jesus at a tomb of a man dead four days.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">It is referred to as the Gospel of John’s final and pinnacle sign and miracle:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the raising of a man long dead.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">There is no denying that this is essential to the structure of John’s Gospels.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Through a series of miraculous signs, God’s power in Jesus is being demonstrated to all who would believe.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Like all good stories, there are often multiple messages being claimed and taught.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I believe that the Gospel writer uses these stories for a secondary point.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The way we see it is by examining the entire story. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">John’s 11th chapter begins with the news that a certain man, Lazarus of Bethany, brother to Mary and her sister Martha.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>We are told that Mary “was the one who anointed Jesus with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair”, a story that will be told in the next chapter.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>But what is more important for the moment is that we are told that Jesus and this family love each other.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The Gospel writer may be alluding to Luke’s story of Martha and Mary who host Jesus, with Martha serving and getting upset with her sister who “does nothing”.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Or for all we know, there are a collection of stories of this family that were previously told by others.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>We only know for certain that this is the first time Gospel writer John is mentioning them, but he is making it clear that the sisters’ message to Jesus about the illness comes not out of reputation, but out of an established relationship.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus hears of this news, and reacts with an all-knowing response:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>“This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified thorough it.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">THIS IS IT!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Thinks Jesus.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The final sign:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>GLORY FOR GOD THROUGH THE SON.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">So he intentionally stays away…two full days longer…in the place where he was.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus then says, all-knowing, that it is time to go to Bethany.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>“Why would you go there?” his disciples ask. “It’s too dangerous for you (and for us).” <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">“Lazarus is dead,” says Jesus.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I’m glad I wasn’t there, so you may believe.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Everything is perfectly set up with intention.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Lazarus is dead, Jesus is going to deliver the show-stopper:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>raising a dead man from the grave, just outside of Jerusalem where everyone will hear and “know God’s Glory.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus, full of divine power, sets off to perform the miracle.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Now it’s time to make an important observation about Jesus in The Gospel of John.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>What is apparent, dominant actually, is Jesus’ divinity.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In the Gospel of John, Jesus talks a lot.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And he talks like no human ever has.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>He talks with divine knowledge and insight:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>with eternal power.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>He might look human, he has a human body, but he comes across the way that the Gospel’s prologue describes him.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>He is the Word of God, with God from the beginning of creation, he was one with God, and is God.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In John’s Gospel, he starts at the place of eternal, and “becomes flesh,” rather than in the other Gospels where he comes into the relationship of oneness with God.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">This means that his humanity, to be honest, isn’t particularly convincing.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>One wonders how much, if any, of Jesus of Nazareth’s actual life is reflected in this portrait of “Jesus the Christ.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">But this Gospel writer does this intentionally to demonstrate something else that is compelling to us who call Christianity our way to God.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Jesus the Christ, within this journey, moves closer to us, towards all of humanity.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Consider for a moment the first miracle/sign of Jesus:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The Wedding at Cana.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>This first sign, changing water into wine, only happens because Mary his mother insists.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Consider the interplay:</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i>When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Something is clearly missing from this dialogue.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>There is nothing that suggests Jesus is going to act, and yet his mother is now telling the servants he will.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I will speculate to some different versions of the story.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Perhaps Mary gave him the scalding look that only a mother can give her son.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>As the disciples reacted with uncomfortable silence, Jesus, thinking better of it, nodded consent to his mother.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Better yet, imagine this dialogue:</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Mary, calmly, says “Jesus, may I speak to you privately for a moment.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The two go off to the side hallway, and Jesus speaks first.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">“Look mother, I have things planned out, and this is not my place to intercede.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It’s not important in the grand scheme of things.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">“No Jesus, you look.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Running out of wine at a wedding is a great dishonor, and you know that!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>This is the couple’s biggest day of their life.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Their families will be embarrassed, and this is what people will talk about when they remember the occasion. How dare you do nothing when you could do otherwise!”</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus was silent for a moment.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>“Of course I will help.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The point here is this:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Jesus the Christ doesn’t yet fully understand humanity.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Jesus’ argument not to act is the justification to ignore the plight of your neighbor as not your problem, and it is to ignore the hospitality need of the moment because it wasn’t the way you had things planned.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus in the end rejects his own excuse not to help, and changes the water to wine:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the first sign.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Fast forward back to our story today, the arrival at Bethany.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Martha goes out to meet him.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Perhaps this is a face-value statement by Martha, but coupled with our insight that Jesus intentionally stayed away, it becomes a touch accusatory.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>We then get the theological conversation necessary for John’s Gospel, but our secondary story continues when Mary finally arrives:</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i>When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the (Judeans) who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus began to weep. So the (Judeans) said, ‘See how he loved him</i>!’ </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">This is a reasonable conclusion to make:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Jesus is weeping because Lazarus died, and Jesus loved him.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>But it’s wrong.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Jesus KNOWS what he’s going to do.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>He raising Lazarus from the dead.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>There’s no reason to weep over his death.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">No, what gets to Jesus is the realization that HE HAS CAUSED the suffering of Mary, Martha, and the others gathered.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>He could have gotten there.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>He could have prevented all this from happening.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>One can make the argument that, for the first time, the Word of God gets insight into what it truly means to be mortal in this human life, and what pain is caused to others by death.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">It is this that greatly disturbs his spirit, and moves him to tears.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The secondary message of the Gospel of John, and perhaps the message with greatest impact for our lives right now, is that we should be compelled to do all that we can to potentially alleviate the suffering of others.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>That’s why so many of us are staying at home, and distancing ourselves physically from others.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Since none of us can raise the dead, we are called to protect others by doing the things that we ask of Jesus that we can do, <b>like tending the sick, giving rest to the weary, blessing the dying, soothing the suffering, pitying the afflicted, and shielding the joyous.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">And we do it all, for love's sake.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-92158385260348082472020-03-26T11:56:00.000-04:002020-03-26T11:57:36.211-04:00How long to sing this song?<div class="p1" style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 14.3px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i style="background-color: black;"><br /></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i style="background-color: black;">I waited patiently for the Lord;</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i style="background-color: black;">he inclined to me and heard my cry.</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i style="background-color: black;">He drew me up from the desolate pit,</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i style="background-color: black;">out of the miry bog,</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i style="background-color: black;">and set my feet upon a rock,</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i style="background-color: black;">making my steps secure.</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i style="background-color: black;">He put a new song in my mouth,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i style="background-color: black;">a song of praise to our God.</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i style="background-color: black;">Many will see and fear,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i style="background-color: black;">and put their trust in the Lord.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i style="background-color: black;">—-Psalm 40:1-3</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">In 1983, the rock and roll group U2 used these words to work a tune that became a song called 40.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The repeated words from the Psalm are:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">“I will sing, sing a new song”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">Followed by U2’s own question</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">“How long to sing this song?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">It seems apparent that they understood that the psalm itself expressed longing for something new…and the realization that the moment of newness was “not yet”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">While this song was reflective, perhaps even meditative, they used the same questioning line in another song on the album… expressing frustration and anger.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">“Sunday Bloody Sunday” remembered the death of thirteen protesters in Derry, Northern Ireland.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Amidst the agony of violence and hate, comes the cry:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">How long, how long must we sing this song</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">How long, how long???</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">We ask this question in so many contexts: <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>how long must we endure?</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>how long must things be broken?</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>how long will we fail to love God, neighbor and self?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">One question that we are all wondering is “how long will this virus continue to upend our lives”, which leads to a connected, rather specific question, less important but certainly on many of our minds,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">“How long before we can once again gather as the full community at St. Paul’s?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">No one knows the answer to this question, but I think I can safely say that it will not be resolved by Holy Week and Easter.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>So I will say out loud the sad, and difficult words now:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">We will not have services here at the church during Holy Week and Easter Sunday.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">This is a hard decision in the sense that we know our services sustain people in their daily lives, especially in times of crisis. This is also the right course for our community, for we are called to care for one another to the best of our abilities. This action may not only prevent individuals from getting sick, but from spreading the virus to those most at risk, and could potentially keep our healthcare system from being overrun. These precautions are worth it precisely because they may make a difference.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">I am working now on a series of reflections and videos to be released daily during Holy Week.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It is also my intent that, whenever it is safe to return to public worship together at St. Paul’s, that that Sunday will be a Festive Easter Resurrection service, no matter what the calendar says.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">However, I want to point out one more set of lyrics from U2.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">Following the cry, “How long must we sing this song.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>How long?”, they give an answer.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">“Tonight, we can be as one, tonight.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">Being one together is never solely about physical presence, or any liturgical service, but about God connecting all of us, woven to each other because we are all made in the image of God.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">Thanks to God’s love, we remain one.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: black;">Thanks be to God.</span></div>
Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-90584601974414046012018-10-30T15:22:00.001-04:002018-10-30T15:22:41.650-04:00RealityWelcome to the blog, but I have to be honest with you: I'm not blogging anymore. <div>
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Maybe someday again, but for now I invite you to look at old posts. If you comment, I will still post it and respond in some way.</div>
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Take care,</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Kurt</div>
Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-11052948631261801952018-02-14T16:13:00.000-05:002018-02-14T16:49:20.771-05:00Ash Wednesday on Valentine's Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-O_FO7x42ZUI/WoSloVs3TuI/AAAAAAAAAXk/bH-e9NgcDTsYuaaI3-AwQqG4ksbuq1XiwCLcBGAs/s1600/fullsizeoutput_f1d.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="875" data-original-width="1600" height="175" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-O_FO7x42ZUI/WoSloVs3TuI/AAAAAAAAAXk/bH-e9NgcDTsYuaaI3-AwQqG4ksbuq1XiwCLcBGAs/s320/fullsizeoutput_f1d.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">I cannot ever remember experiencing an Ash Wednesday on Valentine’s Day.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">As I sat with the idea, I thought of a strange “what if.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>What if (and please let me play this out before moving to outrage) we made Ash hearts on our foreheads to start Lent?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Consider the symbolic, metaphoric, and more-than-literal possibilities by such a declaration.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">There are the metaphoric heart conditions: </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Hearts a fire…Hearts ablaze…</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">There is metaphoric action of the heart: <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">From the Ashes to Go service, “We take to heart God’s call to repentance and the assura</span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #cccccc;">nce of forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel, and practice in our lives the work of reconciliation.”</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">There is metaphoric transformation of the heart: </span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Hearts of stone to hearts of flesh. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">New and contrite hearts.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">And then, the heart as love:</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Jesus in the Gospel of Mark:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>“The Lord our God, the Lord is one;<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength….You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(Mark 12:29-31)</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Or perhaps even more concise, Jesus in The Gospel of John:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>“Love one another as I have loved you." (John 15:12)</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">An ash heart would work…and might be better understood by the world.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">However, the cross is our “Heart of Christianity,” to invoke the title of Marcus Borg’s best known book.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The cross is the more-than-literal heart of our faith.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The true impact of ash and the cross are revealed in Paul’s writings, as explored by Borg and John Dominic Crossan in their book “The First Paul”.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Cross — The Roman imperial reaction to the love taught and lived out by Jesus.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Roman cross is the brutal, violent action of an unjust execution.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">But we Christians, see in crucifixion the depth of God’s love for us as revealed in God’s son…who died not in our place for sin, but died because of his love for God’s people and his passion for a different kind if life for all of God’s creation.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(see “The First Paul”, p. 142)</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The meaning of resurrection then becomes clear.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Where the Romans sought to disparage and disgrace, we see new, sacred life:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Jesus is Lord…Caesar is not (be it the Caesar of then, or the Caesars of today). <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Peace and love and non-violence and justice, summed up as God’s righteousness, is to be distributed to and for everyone.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Ashes are an outward and visible sign of the transformation that we are called to be part of:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>active participants in God’s creation of a transformed world.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">This is the way for God, and the way for Jesus, and the way for us.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">(Thanks to Shannon and Rhonda who helped me create the image.)</span></span></div>
Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-4713280506724223442017-09-18T15:01:00.003-04:002017-09-18T15:17:26.514-04:00Forgiveness?<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">A riff off of yesterday’s sermon on <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Matthew+18:21-35&vnum=yes&version=nrsv" target="_blank">Matthew 18:21-35</a>, in the midst of yet again removing safeguards from Americans' healthcare: <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">How does one…a slave no less…come to owe ten thousand talents (the guesstimates of such a sum in modern terms range from over a million to multiple millions of dollars)? <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Perhaps by living in a society where the system of power leads to terrible injustice.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I imagine where a king has the sole ability to pass judgement and forgive out of his abundance:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and then hold everyone to his standard of “forgiveness” even though the system remains corrupt.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Or maybe a society where being born with complications to a family without healthcare leads to unplayable amounts of debt? Or an endless series of all to imaginable healthcare complications in one's lifetime that leads to drowning in bills? </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Only one person forgives anyone in Jesus’ story:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the king.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>He forgives only once, then acts in anger and condemns the person to perpetual torture for failure to “forgive” like the powerful king that he has nothing in common with at all.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">What was Jesus really trying to teach his disciples after first saying they must forgive “seventy-seven times” and then telling this story?</span></span></div>
Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-41044755425422678252016-11-25T16:57:00.001-05:002016-11-25T16:59:37.620-05:00Post-Election sermon 2016<div class="p1">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Are you kidding me?</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Real estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump was caught on tape bragging about grabbing women. He claims a judge cannot do his job because his parents are from Mexico and thus biased against Trump. He received universal condemnation for verbally attacking a gold star family, and suggested that women accusing him of sexual assault must be lying because they aren't attractive enough to interest him. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The nicest way to sum up the man is that he is a bully: and that bully will be the next President of the United States. And on the Sunday after he is elected, our three-year cycle lectionary <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=347108862" target="_blank">gives us an apocalyptical text</a> with destruction, false leaders, division and persecution….</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">You have got to be kidding me.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So what is a preacher to do on such a Sunday? One road is “God in charge”. Well meaning, faithful people express this reality as the ultimate statement of faith that God is in charge despite all the uncertainty found in the world. And there is truth to be found in the statement. There are two critical problems, however, for this to be the focus of a sermon today. When those who are worried and frightened hear someone say “God in charge”, it feels like a dismissal of their fears with a platitude. The other problem with “God is on the throne” is the critical truth that God was “in charge” though some of the worst moments in human history: the Crusades, the Holocaust, slavery. “God is in charge” sounds like God had the power to stop these things, and chose not to. God has asked humanity to be heart and hands in this world, and where we fail it is on us. God weeps, and can only promise that in the midst of the ashes of destruction, new life will happen….</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I will not take this sermon time to explore how this election happened: what could have been done differently, or what caused the outcome. Nor will I suggest what Trump supporters agree and disagree with concerning their candidate. But it is a true statement that there is a significant portion of the country who had their misogyny, their racism, their hatred for other religions and for LGBTQ persons affirmed and emboldened by the results of this election. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1304643516221767&set=a.143250629027734.21494.100000283920810&type=3&theater" target="_blank">An Episcopal priest in Iowa</a> found a graphic, threatening note towards his sexuality on his car.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In Wisconsin, a girl had to hit a boy who tried to grab her in the crotch at school--he was trying to demonstrate that 'what Donald did is no big deal'. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/2016-presidential-election/2016/11/10/pro-trump-fliers-call-tar-feather-vigilante-squads-organize-texas-state-university" target="_blank">Flyers appeared on the Texas State campus</a> which read: ”Now that our man TRUMP is elected and republicans own both the senate and the house — time to organize tar & feather VIGILANTE SQUADS and go arrest & torture those deviant university leaders spouting off all this Diversity Garbage.”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://buffalonews.com/2016/11/09/disturbing-acts-in-wellsville-at-canisius-college-follow-election-day/" target="_blank">At Canisius College in Buffalo, New York</a> a black baby doll was hung by a noose in a dorm elevator</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/11/11/over-200-incidents-hateful-harassment-and-intimidation-election-day" target="_blank">A report filed to the Southern Poverty Law Center from Colorado</a> detailed how the words “Death to Diversity” was written on a banner displayed on a school library, and that white male students were going up to women saying it was now “legal to (sexually) grab them”. </span></span></div>
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<a href="http://buffalonews.com/2016/11/09/disturbing-acts-in-wellsville-at-canisius-college-follow-election-day/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></a></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://buffalonews.com/2016/11/09/disturbing-acts-in-wellsville-at-canisius-college-follow-election-day/" target="_blank">A baseball dugout in Western New York</a> was spray-painted with a swastika and the words "Make America White Again". </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://fox13now.com/2016/11/11/ogden-couple-says-vandals-painted-homophobic-slurs-on-their-car/" target="_blank">Spray paint on a car here in Utah</a> for its owner to die for being gay…</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1304643516221767&set=a.143250629027734.21494.100000283920810&type=3&theater" target="_blank">The Rev. Jacqueline Cameron writes that “These are NOT little things.</a> They are not isolated events. Admittedly, they were part of our culture before the candidacy and election of Donald Trump, but his words and actions--as well as the words and actions of some of his supporters…have led many to believe that this sort of thing is normal or not a big deal, or that those on the receiving end should just shut up and deal with it.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/KissingFishBook/posts/1487113701318029" target="_blank">A Facebook post attributed to Michael Rex</a> says this is why people are protesting on social media and in the streets:</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">“The people aren't just angry or sad that someone they didn't support won the election, they're scared.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="s1">They're black Americans who hear talk of law and order and remember a racially charged stop and frisk program, or see an emboldened KKK holding a celebratory parade.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="s1">They're Muslim Americans who worry that spitting in their face is now okay and violations of their rights to assemble and their rights to privacy are about to come.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="s1">They're LGBT Americans who fear not just of the loss of marriage rights or restaurants gaining the right not to serve them, but of an administration that thinks it's more important to research electrocuting the gay out of them than AIDS.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="s1">They're Hispanic and Latino Americans who are scared their children will be bullied in schools, and their families ripped apart while their culture is mocked.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">They're women who are wondering if we've normalized groping, and if their career endeavors will be judged by their face and body, and not their minds.”</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">This brings us to a second area that is likely expected to be preached by a preacher: the question of unity. Those who know me well know that unity, even in our difference, is critically important. To quote my favorite band, “We’re one, but we’re not the same.” But unity is a complex subject in these times…</span><span class="s1"></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/paddy.foran.9/posts/892688054012?pnref=story" target="_blank">Paddy Foran, a teacher I know</a> at The White Mountain School, wrote this on Facebook:</span><span class="s1"></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">“For so many it's not as simple as just accepting the results of the election. Are people of color, Muslims, immigrants, Jews, women etc. etc. etc. just supposed to ignore all that was said during the campaign? Take a quick look at what has already transpired in schools across this country - the hate and violence is real. If you feel like you can afford to hope for the best and wait it out until 2018 or 2020 I bet I can guess your race and likely your gender as well. Stop for a moment and imagine how the lives and post-election experiences of People of Color, Muslims, immigrants etc. might be different from yours. We do very much need unity. Unity however, does not mean silent complacency. We must unite to protect all people in this country as well as our Constitution and the institutions that make the United States of America all that it is, has been and can be."</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Senator Elizabeth Warren, often mockingly referred to as “Pocahontas” by Trump, had <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2016/11/10/read-elizabeth-warrens-speech-about-working-with-president-elect-donald-trump" target="_blank">similar words of caution concerning unity</a>:</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">”Today, as President-Elect, Donald Trump has an opportunity to chart a different course: to govern for all Americans and to respect our institutions. In his victory speech, he pledged that he would be “President for all” of the American people. And when he takes the oath of office as the leader of our democracy and the leader of all Americans, I sincerely hope that he will fulfill that pledge with respect and concern for every single human being in this country, no matter who they are, no matter where they come from, no matter what they believe, no matter whom they love.</span></span> </span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">(But we) will stand up to bigotry. There is no compromise here. In all its forms, we will fight back against attacks on Latinos, African Americans, women, Muslims, immigrants, disabled Americans-on anyone. Whether Donald Trump sits in a glass tower or sits in the White House, we will not give an inch on this, not now, not ever…</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Part of our move towards unity involves clarifying conversation for those willing to have it. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/what-should-we-tell-the-children_us_5822aa90e4b0334571e0a30b" target="_blank">Educator Ali Michael suggests</a>:</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">"Not everyone who voted for Donald Trump did so because they believe the bigoted things that he has said this year. Many of them voted for him because they feel frustrated with the economy, they feel socially left behind, and they are exercising the one power they have. We need to challenge Trump and his supporters to differentiate between their fears and the bigotry catalyzed by those fears.”</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/KissingFishBook/posts/1487113701318029" target="_blank">Michael Rex post,</a> he states the believe that the majority of those who voted for Trump are not for hatred of any kind, but pleas for them to speak out against these things fully and clearly. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">"It's not enough that you didn't say them yourself. You need to reassure your friends and family members who feel like they no longer have a seat at the table that you still stand with them, even if your priorities were different on Tuesday." </span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Senator Warren said, in the same speech that I quoted earlier, that it is true that <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2016/11/10/read-elizabeth-warrens-speech-about-working-with-president-elect-donald-trump" target="_blank">people are right to be angry about legitimate economic issues for the vast majority of Americans</a>…</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="s1">“President-Elect Trump spoke to these issues. Republican elites hated him for it. But he didn’t care. He criticized Wall Street and big money’s dominance in Washington-straight up….He spoke of the need to reform our trade deals so they aren’t raw deals for the American people. He said he will not cut Social Security benefits. He talked about the need to address the rising cost of college and about helping working parents struggling with the high cost of child care. He spoke of the urgency of rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and putting people back to work. He spoke to the very real sense of millions of Americans that their government and their economy has abandoned them. And he promised to rebuild our economy for working people.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="s1">The deep worry that people feel over an America that does not work for them is not liberal or conservative worry. It is not Democratic or Republican worry. It is the deep worry that led even Americans with very deep reservations about Donald Trump’s temperament and fitness to vote for him anyway.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So let me be 100% clear about this. When President-Elect Trump wants to take on these issues, when his goal is to increase the economic security of middle class families, then count me in. I will put aside our differences and I will work with him to accomplish that goal. I offer to work as hard as I can and to pull as many people as I can into this effort. If Trump is ready to go on rebuilding economic security for millions of Americans, so am I and so are a lot of other people-Democrats and Republicans.”</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The African American comedian Dave Chappelle succinctly summed things up at the end of his monologue last night on Saturday Night Live: </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">“I’m wishing Donald Trump luck, and I’m going to give him a chance. And we, the historically disenfranchised, demand that he give us one to.”</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So: where do we go from here?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Rev. Jacqueline Cameron offers a few questions for us:</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="s1">“How do we create a neighborhood/city/country where respect and friendship and integrity and curiosity and justice and generosity are what's normal? How can we feel safe and be bold and still be open to learning about and from others? How do we stand together to combat physical and emotional abuse? </span> </span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I don't believe in easy answers, but I think we're going to need to be much more alert and active and creative in the never-ending task of seeking life-giving responses to all of these questions--when we're at home, at work, at worship, at play--everywhere, really. We really can build a better country--even when it feels impossible. We have to.”</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I do not know what God is calling you to do: I do know that God needs you, desperately, to be part of solution where all of God’s creation…all people…are welcomed and cared for by all.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So we will close this time with remembering the questions found in <a href="http://www.bcponline.org/" target="_blank">the renewing of our Baptismal Covenant</a>, and will remember that we do all of these things with God’s help:</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="s1">Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?</span><span class="s1">People<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><b>I will, with God's help.</b></span><span class="s1"> <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span> </span><span class="s1">Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?</span><span class="s1">People<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><b>I will, with God's help.</b></span><span class="s1"> <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span> </span><span class="s1">Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?</span><span class="s1">People<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><b>I will, with God's help.</b></span><span class="s1"> <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span> </span><span class="s1">Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving </span><span class="s1">your neighbor as yourself?</span><span class="s1">People<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><b>I will, with God's help</b>.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="s1">Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?</span><br /><span class="s1">People<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><b>I will, with God's help.</b></span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Amen.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">(This sermon was given at the three services at <a href="http://www.stpauls-slc.org/" target="_blank">St. Paul's Episcopal SLC</a> on November 12th and 13th. Some of it was delivered without a manuscript: this seeks to be faithful to what was said.)</span></span></div>
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Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-84951195939516780782016-08-01T16:25:00.000-04:002016-08-01T16:56:18.903-04:00Cubs win...and lose.<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ok baseball fans: curious for your thoughts...</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I was on vacation when the stunning news that the Cubs acquired Adrolis Chapman. I'm profoundly disappointed. I understand in baseball sense, but I'm one who also believes (perhaps by my nature as a Cubs fan) that winning isn't everything...and that winning the right way is important. Yes, I know nothing was proven, but at the very least, Chapman used the threat of violence to intimidate his girlfriend.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">He's served a suspension. The players say they have no issue with him. Joe Maddon, a great manager, says of this "We've all been less than perfect."</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That's not good enough for me...</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've watched the amazing highlights from last night's crazy comeback win more than once. I should be on a Cubs "cloud 9": and I was this morning. And yet now, I'm back to the reality that the Cubs management have not simply damaged my love of this team, but have in some ways trivialized the very real reality of abuse towards another human being.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Please, no silly stuff about "root for my team instead" or anything like that...or a "this is why I hate professional sports rant" (a valid opinion, but not where I am). I'd like your honest opinions about a game I've always have loved to watch...a team I have always rooted for...and a potential ride to the World Series that I should be loving, but now feel more than a bit shallow for caring so much.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(If you need a reference, here is <a href="http://espn.go.com/blog/keith-law/insider/post?id=5408" target="_blank">Keith Law's ESPN article "Cubs pay a heavy price for Aroldis Chapman, on and off the field."</a> Law has been very consistent concerning baseball players and domestic abuse.)</span></span><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">ADDITIONAL THOUGHT: Someone shared a <a href="http://deadspin.com/why-prosecutors-didnt-bring-charges-against-aroldis-cha-1754305230?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=Deadspin_twitter" target="_blank">Deadspin</a> article about the incident. If I had read this before, I'd likely have worded the "at the very least, Chapman used the threat of violence to intimidate his girlfriend" differently. I don't think it changes my overall opinion...</span></span></div>
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Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-48617373765629109952016-01-18T14:21:00.002-05:002016-01-18T14:28:37.774-05:00Out of wine<span style="color: #cccccc;">May have lost the audio for my sermon on the #Primates2016 action against The Episcopal Church.</span><br />
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<span style="color: yellow;">While we see if it can be recovered, here are some thoughts on Sunday's Gospel story, "The Wedding at Cana":</span></span><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">This is from the Book of Common Prayer, page 423.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i><span style="color: #cccccc;">Dearly beloved: We have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining together of this man and this woman.</span></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">(Yes, this is the wedding ceremony found in the 1979 Prayerbook)</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i><span style="color: #cccccc;">The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation</span></i></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">(That’s debatable, but again, not my point today. Here it comes though...)</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><i><span style="color: #cccccc;">...and our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee.</span></i></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">This is one of the best examples of the institutional church making a GIGANTIC and CONVENIENT leap in using a Gospel text to suit its needs. But I’m afraid it’s just flat out wrong. There is just NO WAY that the Gospel writer’s point is a public endorsement of marriage, and the story has no other Biblical source but this account.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">It is in fact likely that there is only one real reason that John tells this story. Jesus, for the first time in the Gospel of John, publicly demonstrates his power, and his disciples are completely convinced that they are not mistaken in their earlier stated belief, in (Chapter 1), that Jesus is God’s son. This is John’s ultimate message: that Jesus is the Word Incarnate. The story concludes:</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s2"><i><sup>11</sup></i></span><span class="s1"><i>Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” </i></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">That’s the real point of the story...not an endorsement of marriage.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">There is, however, something that has always struck me as odd. It’s not to say that the Gospel writer intended to say something else in his telling of the story, but it’s there, nevertheless. </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">It’s the bit of dialogue between Jesus and his mother.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s2"><i><sup>3</sup></i></span><span class="s1"><i>When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” </i></span><span class="s2"><i><sup>4</sup></i></span><span class="s1"><i>And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” </i></span><span class="s2"><i><sup>5</sup></i></span><span class="s1"><i>His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”</i></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"><i></i></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Is it me, or is something missing here? Mary voices concern to Jesus, Jesus dismisses her concern, and then Mary tells the servants to listen to Jesus, who proceeds in solving the problem. This doesn’t seem to follow any logic whatsoever. </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">I have come up with three possibilities as to the missing part. To illustrate these options, I’d thought I’d reset the story a little differently.<br />
</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">There was a wedding in Cana. At the reception, Jesus was sitting at the “Adult kids” table with his friends. They were kicking it back and laughing amongst themselves. Peter had been bragging about bringing a date, but it turned out to be Phillip’s younger cousin, so they all were giving them both a hard time. Not too far into the evening, there was some whispering going on at some of the other tables. Mary, Jesus’ mom, came over to the table, next to Jesus. </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">“They have no wine,” she said in a concerned voice.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Jesus raised an eyebrow. “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.”</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Now, as I said, there are three possibilities here. Jesus may have said this in a teasing, good natured voice, with a wink and nudge, pretending that his mom’s concern was drinking more wine herself, while conveying that he really understood and would help the situation. Mary would have given him a look of mock disgust, before telling the servants to “Do whatever he tells you.”</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Option two. After Jesus remarked, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come,” Mary gave him the scalding look that only a mother can give her son. As the disciples reacted with uncomfortable silence, Jesus, thinking better of it, nodded consent to his mother, and she told the servants “Do whatever he tells you.”</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Possibility three restores a bit of dialogue, and illustrates what’s really at stake. </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">“Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” The disciples are a bit taken aback by Jesus’ response to his mother. Mary, calmly, says “Jesus, may I speak to you privately for a moment.”</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">The two go off to the side hallway, and Jesus speaks first.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">“Look mother, I have things planned out, and this is not my place to intercede. It’s not important in the grand scheme of things.”</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">“No Jesus, you look. Running out of wine at a wedding is a great dishonor, and you know that! This is the couple’s biggest day of their life. Their families will be embarrassed, and this is what people will talk about when they remember the occasion. How dare you do nothing when you could do otherwise!”</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Jesus was silent for a moment. “Of course I will help.”</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Mary returned to the main room, and told the servants “Do whatever he tells you.”</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">In the grand scheme of things, running out of wine at a wedding means very little. In 1</span><span class="s2"><sup>st</sup></span><span class="s1"> century Jewish culture, it meant a great deal more, and for those personally involved, it meant everything. </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">My point is this: “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come,” is the perfect excuse not to act. It is reasoning not to get involved because it’s not important in your eyes. It is the justification to ignore the plight of your neighbor as not your problem, and it is to ignore the hospitality need of the moment because it wasn’t the way you had things planned.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">In this case, Jesus rejects his own words. He deviates from the way he planned things to do what is needed. Ironically, it became the norm for his ministry, not the exception. The second sign in the Gospel of John is less known, but also occurs in Cana. A royal official comes to Jesus, and begs him to come with him and heal his son. Jesus says to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” The official says to him, “Sir, come down before my little boy dies.” Jesus says to him, “Go; you son will live.” The official believes, and upon journeying home, finds his son well. (John 4:46-54)</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Whether it was Nicodemus coming to him at night, the Samaritan woman at the well, or even his mother and friend standing together at his crucifixion, Jesus in the Gospel of John uses each encounter to demonstrate the glory of God, while at the same time, pastorally caring for people. </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">That’s good news.</span></span></div>
Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-58072144563648673732015-10-08T14:37:00.001-04:002015-10-08T14:37:39.029-04:00Go Cubs Go!!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-457300484968302102015-07-27T12:02:00.001-04:002015-07-27T12:02:59.360-04:00Sending forth to Seminary<br />
One of the members of St. Paul's Salt Lake City, Brian Rallison, is leaving for seminary (VTS).<br />
<br />
We decided to "send him forth" from St. Paul's: acknowledging his formation here within this congregation, and publicly stating that this relationship is not ending, but changing.<br />
<br />
I looked through every resource I have, and found nothing to liturgically do this. <br />
<br />
So naturally, I made something up! My commentary on the liturgy (right after the Confession and Absolution, but before the Peace) is in red:<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>SENDING FORTH BRIAN RALLISON TO SEMINARY</b><br />
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Kurt begins, calling up Diane Gooch and Rhonda Dossett along with Rev. Christine</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Starts with a few words… <span style="color: red;">(about the changing, not ending, of our relationship to Brian)</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Then Kurt invites Christine to say a few words about Brian’s journey and a prayer</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: red;">(I asked Christine to speak, since I have only been here since February, and missed much of Brian's journey. She did a wonderful job.)</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Christine says her words, and then says:</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">“This is a collective prayer for all of us, adapted from Thomas Merton’s <i>Thoughts in Solitude”</i>:</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><b>God, we have no idea where we are going. We do not see the road ahead of us. We cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do we really know ourselves, and the fact that we think that we are following your will does not mean that we are actually doing so. But we believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And we hope we have that desire in all that we do. We hope that we will never do anything apart from that desire. And we know that if we do this you will lead us by the right road though we may know nothing about it. Therefore we will trust you always though we may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. We will not fear, for you are ever with us, and you will never leave me to face our perils alone.” </b></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">― Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude p. 83</span></blockquote>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: red;">(This Merton prayer has become a favorite, thanks to The Rev. Canon Matthew Stockard who introduced me to it at CREDO. The plural version is actually used in the book Listening Hearts: Discerning Call in Community, by Suzanne Farnham, Joseph Gill, Taylor McLean and Susan Ward.)</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /><span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Then Kurt invites the four of us to place our hands on Brian’s shoulders:</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><b>You have arrived to this moment by living fully into what God has created. There is no other path to this moment than the past. Learn and grow from what has transpired.</b></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><b>The Lord Jesus continues to be your strength: it is through his vulnerable way that you find and seek the Holy.</b></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><b>And now, as you go forward to seminary, be open to what the Holy Spirit has in store: whether or not it matches your vision of what you believe will come.</b></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><b>And may God’s blessing be upon you, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, now and forever. AMEN.</b></span></blockquote>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Each person says to Brian:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><b>"God goes with you.”</b></span></blockquote>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">and then Kurt invites the Peace.</span></div>
Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-76838376149644173482015-06-22T16:01:00.000-04:002015-06-22T16:01:15.339-04:00The Charleston racial terror shootings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My sermon was not only not written down, but differed greatly from the intimate conversation of our two smaller services, and our large 10:30am service with a guest bishop and a baptism. I cannot reproduce it here, but I can share with you some of the components:</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b><span style="color: yellow; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We started with <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Mark+4:35-41&vnum=yes&version=nrsv" target="_blank">Mark’s Gospel (4:35-41)</a> and the fear of the disciples, compared with the calm of Jesus:</span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Jesus can sleep and be at rest during the storm first because he is not the experienced boatsman (the fisherman disciples are): he trusts that they will do what they can. Going further and deeper, while Jesus plans to continue his preaching, teaching, and healing, he completely trusts God: he knows that the Kingdom of God is at hand, and knows that if he should perish, that God’s vision of the world will be carried by others (consider in Mark that Jesus only begins speaking publicly after John the Baptist’s voice is silenced.)</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">His criticism of the disciples is giving in to their fear, and ceasing their action. </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b><span style="color: yellow; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We remembered the names of those killed in Charleston:</span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">• Cynthia Hurd, 54, a manager with the Charleston County Public Library system.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">• Ethel Lance, 70, a retiree who recently worked as a church janitor</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">• The Rev. Clementa Pinckney, 41, a South Carolina state senator and pastor at the church</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">• Susie Jackson, 87, a longtime member of the church</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">• The Rev. Depayne Middleton Doctor, 49, former Charleston County community development director</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">• Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, a church pastor, speech therapist and a high school girls' track coach</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">• Myra Thompson, 59, a pastor at the church</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">• The Rev. Daniel Simmons, Sr., 74, another pastor at the church</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Tywanza Sanders, 26, a 2014 graduate of Allen University</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Their pictures were placed on the altar.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b><span style="color: yellow; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Using our voices to not be afraid, to confess and call out sin:</span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At the smaller services, I talked about my complete rejection of what the killer did (and his racial hatred motivations) and my assumption that those present in church feel this way too. However, racism is far more prevalent in our lives than we acknowledge. I admitted that I continue to benefit from being white in America: from storekeepers looking differently at me, to the reality that I can reasonably count on help from police officers. I suggested that while the Battle Flag does not represent the views of most South Carolinians, it’s presence gives justification to those who hate and would act on those views: and that…and things like it…is on us.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At the later service, I used what <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2015/06/jon-stewart-on-the-charleston-shooting-sort-of-like-a-prophet/" target="_blank">Peter Enns wrote on Jonathan Stewart’s Daily Show monologue</a> after the murders, calling him a modern day prophet: </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1">Stewart using his public platform here to call out sin, clearly, without compromise.</span></span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><span class="s1">Not simply the sin of individual racism that led to this tragedy.</span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1">But the deeper sin of the collective racism of our country that supports and nurtures killers like Dylann Roof and of the structures in place that can’t quite seem to get up enough steam to move mountains if necessary to do something about it.</span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1">Biblical prophets held Israel’s leaders accountable. They got in their face, like they were prosecuting attorneys bringing out a laundry list of crimes against the people.</span></span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><span class="s1">Biblical prophets were voices of moral consciousness and tireless advocates for the marginalized, the vulnerable, the oppressed.</span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1">They were voices of what the Bible calls justice and righteousness….</span></span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1">Bringing justice and righteousness to our world is nothing less than what the Bible calls: salvation, deliverance, redemption–words contemporary Christian rhetoric often restricts to spiritual matters.</span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1">Though those words include our spiritual state, the ancient Hebrews understood the body and soul, the individual and corporate, the psychological and sociological to be meshed together as one organism.</span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1">Israel’s rulers had the sacred–I will say it again, sacred–responsibility to insure that justice and righteousness are upheld for the good of the whole.</span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1">And like a prophet, Stewart took a step back and looked at the big picture. He was somber, angry, exasperated, and grieved by injustice.</span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1">Like a prophet, I heard Stewart getting political–laying bare the ugliness all around us and the insanity that allows it to happen–or even excuses it.</span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But I also heard a bit of hope, which biblical prophets also give, that it does not need to be this way. We can live differently.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><span style="color: yellow; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Finally, I used a call to action by Episcopalian Paige Baker: </span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1">"I woke up to the news from Charleston, and this is ringing in my head: How long, LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, "Violence!" but you do not save?</span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But this I know: God has no hands but ours. Nothing will change until we stop sitting on them.”</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"></span></div>
Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-28588572264751276282015-06-09T15:55:00.001-04:002015-06-09T16:12:37.531-04:00Adam, Eve and the Serpent (God lets the kids grow up)<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The "Adam and Eve" story found in <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=300879193" target="_blank">the second and third chapters of Genesis</a> is often referred to as a second Creation story. This is largely due to the vastly different accounts of the creation of humans. <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=300877355" target="_blank">The "seven days" story</a> reaches this pinnacle in this way:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">26 Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ </span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">27 So God created humankind in his image,</span></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> in the image of God he created them;</span></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> male and female he created them.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">God makes humanity in "our image": male and female.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Compare and contrast <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=300877355" target="_blank">with Genesis 2</a>:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.</span></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; 6but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— 7then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. 8And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. </span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(and only later...) </span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">22And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23Then the man said,</span></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">‘This at last is bone of my bones</span></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> and flesh of my flesh;</span></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">this one shall be called Woman,</span></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> for out of Man this one was taken.’ </span></span></blockquote>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Just to recap: we all know that humans (and all mammals) are born from women. But it just so happens that the first woman came out of man. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Right...</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At the very least, one can see the stories are saying something quite different. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While there are troubling aspects to be found, there are also lots of places to play with this second story. I imagine God walking through the garden, enjoying the evening breeze. Suddenly, it occurs to God that it is AWFULLY quiet in the garden. This isn't necessarily a good thing: after all, God has young children. Every parent knows (as do most children) that a strangely quiet household often holds a hidden reality. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sure enough, the kids are in trouble...</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One of the most intriguing ideas is what we don't have without the interplay between the humans and the serpent. Bert Marshall writes in Feasting on the Word:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One might ask what would have become of humanity if the woman had not plucked the fruit from the tree. Everything hinges on this, and our text today deals with the chaos that ensues from--dare we say it?--her act of courage (or defiance--however you wish to characterize it). Everything turns on this, because without it, humanity remains docile, numb, obedient, and forever trapped in the garden of sameness and blissful ignorance. This place, as it turns out, is no paradise. No differences, no diversity, no rebellion, no need for grace or redemption. You can see where this path leads. <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 3, editors David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, p. 101)</span></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It leads down a path that at the very least does not reflect the realities of humanity.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I've imagined a different version of the events in order to explore the story more deeply (since I believe these Primeval history chapters of Genesis encourages us to play with the texts). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Adam, Eve and the Serpent</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(God lets the kids grow up)</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the early days of the world, the animals became angry with God. It wasn’t about creation---it was good after all. No, what upset the animals was God’s overprotection of a certain part of Creation: namely, Adam and Eve. It wasn’t that God favored them: the animals understood the special relationship God had with these two. Things, however, had gone to far. Adam and Eve believed that they were the center of the universe. They had no responsibility for anything, and no concept of a world outside of themselves. Just the other day, Adam, while running around with Dog, crashed into Fox and severely injured his back. Eve, no better, cut branches that were sheltering Squirrel’s new home: which then blew away in the recent windstorm. The animals had complained to God, who brushed it off. “Oh, they’re just children.”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The animals were clear that there was a bigger problem going on. It seemed that God was unwilling to expose them to anything dangerous or even challenging. Because of it, Adam and Eve were running around endangering the balance of the new creation. Someone needed to talk some sense into these two, and God, the One who should have taken charge, wasn’t up to it. In desperation, the animals went to Eve’s friend, Serpent, to try and talk some sense into her.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Serpent gets Eve to start to question some of the simplistic things that God has told her to do and not do: what are these prohibitions really about? Why do THEY choose to do and not do, and do the results (even the unintended results) matter? Soon Adam joins in the conversation.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So later that evening, God is walking through the garden, and is shocked when the “pre-teens” give God serious attitude: questioning God’s authority, and declaring that God is “ruining their life.” God gets mad, and starting to realize that they could be in real trouble, the pre-teens blame each other and the serpent. God then gets REALLY mad, but so does Serpent. She confronts God. “You are not teaching Adam and Eve how to care for themselves and others. You are letting them down by over-mothering them, and you have taught them nothing about responsibility.”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“How dare you!” God thundered. “Most of what I’ve done in this world centers around these two. It’s my responsibility to protect them, and I would do anything for them!”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Serpent shakes her head: “That’s not good enough! I thought these two were to be made in your image? But they are nothing like you at all! They have no concept of power, and no understanding beyond themselves. They have to grow up some day, and YOU are supposed to be guiding them, not holding them back.”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">God considers, then offers Adam and Eve a choice. "My children, I love you with everything I am. I would desire that nothing ever harms you: that I would protect you all of your days so that you never experience anguish or pain. But Serpent has a point: my intent was for you to be in my image, and you will never be so unless you learn for yourselves. The choice is yours. Be my children and stay protected and childlike forever here in this beautiful garden. Or choose to grow up: go out into the world and become wise with mistakes and successes, encounter great joys and profound sadness, experience death along with new life."</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Adam and Eve were silent for quite some time. Finally, Eve spoke: “God, we will always be your children. But we must learn our own way.”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Adam nodded in agreement. “It is what you created us for: to fully experience all that life offers.”</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And for the first time, God smiled. “The journey has already begun.”</span></span></div>
Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-19809695929379637472015-06-02T15:28:00.000-04:002015-06-02T15:52:55.460-04:00Saying Alleluias and the spirit of the BCP<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I’m still pretty new here at St. Paul’s Salt Lake City, especially in the grand scheme of things. I’m learning the customs of the community, as well as figuring out how we will share in the leadership of the church.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">St. Paul’s likes their Alleluias. (Paul Higginson: if you read this, enjoy the irony!) They finish every service with them. Their response to whatever form the dismissal takes (except during Lent) is always “Thanks be to God, Alleluia, Alleluia!!!”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The thing is, this is the EASTER season response. The Book of Common Prayer says clearly:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><i>From the Easter Vigil through the Day of Pentecost "Alleluia, alleluia" </i></span><span class="s1"><i>may be added to any of the dismissals.</i></span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>The People respond</i> Thanks be to God. Alleluia, Alleluia.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is rather different then the rubric concerning the other “Alleluia”, at The Breaking of the Bread:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><i>Then may be sung or said</i></span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1">[Alleluia.] Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us;</span><span class="s1">Therefore let us keep the feast. [Alleluia.]</span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><i>In Lent, Alleluia is omitted, and may be omitted at other times except </i></span><span class="s1"><i>during Easter Season.</i></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><i></i></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Armed with the rubric (and "priestly authority”) it would have been easy to demand no Alleluia endings. Instead, I offered a compromise. I said during the announcements, after acknowledging the St. Paul’s custom and what the rubric says, this:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“The spirit of the Book of Common Prayer is to make the Easter Season especially festive. But it would be silly to emphatically stop you all from saying “Alleluia!” So to keep Easter a bit more festive, whoever’s doing the dismissal will use the Alleluia’s only during Easter and special occasions, but you all are welcome to keep responding with Alleluias!”</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And then I added, to the laughter of the congregation.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“And for those of you who couldn’t care less about any of this, thanks for putting up with this announcement!!!”</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I share this as a reminder to myself that we all have our religious custom things that we do. Being kind, gracious, and understanding to authentic forms of faithful expression is a lot more important than an insisting your way is right, even if you do have a rubric on your side.</span></span></div>
Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-75547934420051543362015-06-02T14:41:00.001-04:002015-06-02T15:21:36.117-04:00Explaining the Trinity? Good luck with that...<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Trinity Sunday is one of the only days of the Church year named for a doctrine rather than a person or an event. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The question for the preacher is how to approach it: do I really think that I can explain the Trinity in 8 to 12 minutes of sermon? Is that really enough time?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">David and Jonathan Bennett, brothers and Roman Catholics theologians, on their website called “<a href="http://churchyear.net/" target="_blank"><span class="s2">ChurchYear.Net</span></a>”, state that the common wisdom is that if you talk about the Trinity for longer than a few minutes you will slip into heresy because you are probing the depths of God too deeply.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So, in reality, 8 to 12 minutes might be too long!!!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.churchyear.net/trinitysunday.html" target="_blank"><span class="s2">ChurchYear.Net</span></a> says: “The Trinity is one of the most fascinating - and controversial - Christian dogmas. The Trinity is a mystery. By mystery the Church does not mean a riddle, but rather the Trinity is a reality above our human comprehension that we may begin to grasp, but ultimately must know through worship, symbol, and faith. It has been said that mystery is not a wall to run up against, but an ocean in which to swim."</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They say that the best description (certainly, the safest description if avoiding heresy is your goal) is found in the Nicene Creed. They write “essentially the Trinity is the belief that God is one in essence, but distinct in person. Don't let the word "person" fool you. The Greek word for person means "that which stands on its own," or "individual reality," and does not mean the persons of the Trinity are three human persons. Therefore we believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are somehow distinct from one another (not divided though), yet completely united in will and essence."</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The funny thing: their next words are “How can this be?” <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=John+3:1-17&vnum=yes&version=nrsv" target="_blank">echoing Nicodemus in the Gospel</a> reading. How does one explain this?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.onbeing.org/program/desmond-tutu-a-god-of-surprises/transcript/6185" target="_blank">Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s quote from the Krista Tippett interview</a> that I used last week ended with the same idea: <i>"no faith, not even the Christian faith, can ever encompass God or even be able to communicate who God is. Only God can do that.”</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s3">The Trinity is a concept designed to describe the indescribable. The nature of God and our relationship with God can not be explained by “how.” </span><span class="s1">Explaining the Trinity is like describing why looking at the mountains still invokes an overwhelming sense of beauty and amazement, no matter how long we live among them. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So know from the outset: explaining only leads to more questions, if not confusion.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s4">Metaphor helps. The <a href="http://www.churchyear.net/trinitysunday.html" target="_blank"><span class="s2">ChurchYear.Net</span></a> guys </span><span class="s1">illustrate the Trinity as a musical chord. Think of a C-chord. The C, E, and G notes are all distinct notes, but joined together as one chord the sound is richer and more dynamic than had the notes been played individually. The notes (sic.) are all equally important in producing the rich sound, and the sound is lacking and thin if one of the notes is left out."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The key element of Trinity is relationship. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s4">The book, <i>An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church </i>(edited by Don Armentrout and Robert Boak Slocum)<i>, </i>states that </span><span class="s1">“The Trinity is a perfect relationship of love in which neither unity nor distinctness of the divine persons is compromised. God’s life is understood to be dynamic, loving, and available to be shared in relationship with humanity for salvation.”<br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While ponding God’s being in Trinity further might be helpful, perhaps the best way to move forward is to give voice to our understandings of God in a way that invites the thoughtful reflections of others. <br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I believe that it is this type of sharing: sharing our own personal experiences, and hearing the experiences of others, that leads to transformation of being born by water and Spirit that Jesus speaks of in the Gospel. It’s not the explaining of how things are, or by the dictating of what we must do, but by seeing our life’s journey as an exploration of “the earthly things”: the fabrics of our world, the meaning of our lives, and the mystery that is God’s love for all.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1">A significant part of this exploration, for us, happens in the church. </span><a href="http://fromgloryintoglory.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html" target="_blank">Michael Hopkins, an Episcopal priest, wrote this on his blog</a>:</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We are members of the Episcopal Church because of our calling to be a people at one with one another. It is because of the communion I experience in it, relationships, connectedness, that constantly give me a glimpse of relationship with God, in fact that are manifestations of that relationship itself. As Episcopalians, the church becomes our laboratory for human relationship, a body through whom God continues to choose to work in spite of its flaws. Put succinctly and personally, I am called to be a part of you and I cannot separate this call from my call to be one with God. (<i>From Glory Into Glory</i>, Michael Hopkins)</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We are intertwined with one another and with God. We can’t really explain it…but we somehow know it’s true.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This morning’s Gospel reading was likely chosen by the Lectionary people because it contains all the elements of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. However, it is this line that truly points to the mystery of Trinity:<br />
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“The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We are in relationship with God, each other, and the whole world. We will never be able to fully explain what that means, but our hearts, minds, and souls compel us towards fully living into the oneness offered to us by God.</span></span></div>
Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-7636814987126132022015-04-14T11:47:00.001-04:002015-04-14T11:47:33.746-04:00Unbelieving Thomas<div class="p1">
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<span class="s1"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(a reworking of numerous Thomas sermons: he remains one of my favorites to preach on)</span></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We talk about the disciples fairly regularly here at church: we see and hear them at their best and worst throughout the New Testament scriptures.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But one thing I find interesting about the disciples is that their traits and actions have not, for the most part, been incorporated into everyday sayings.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Take Peter, for example. He gets two known personas from the Gospels: he gets nicknamed “the rock” for his tendencies as a leader (perhaps also for saying things that are dense as a rock). Peter is also widely known for his denials of Jesus.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And yet, people don’t go around saying “your such a denying Peter.” And if someone calls you a rock: well, there’s all sorts of possibilities as to what they’re saying about you, but I’ve never actually heard anyone say “you’re such a rock like Peter.”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That’s pretty much true for all of the disciples. There are only two exceptions that I know of:</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have heard people be called “Judas”: usually in mock betrayal, and much less often with a real sense of betrayal. Thankfully, for obvious reasons, I think most of us are hesitant to really call someone a Judas.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The other exception is found in this morning’s Gospel: “Doubting Thomas” has made it into our vocabulary.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Being called a “Doubting Thomas” is seldom a good thing. The suggestion usually is that you are stuck in doubt that is misplaced, wrong and hurtful.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Thomas was wrong to doubt, says conventional wisdom. And Jesus seems to call him out, saying that those who don't have to see to believe are blessed.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This leads many people to get the idea that doubt is something to be avoided...that we are not suppose to question things...and that when we question issues of faith, it must mean that our faith is weak.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In fact, it is often suggested that the opposite of faith is doubt.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ironically, the Greek word for “doubt” is not found in this passage...anywhere. Yes, our NRSV Bible translates Jesus’ words to Thomas as “Do not doubt, but believe.” But that’s not really what the text says.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It’s more like: “And do not be unbelieving but believing.”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now, you might say that “unbelieving” and “doubt” are about the same thing, but I want to challenge that notion. “Doubt” is questioning something. Doubt is honest searching for answers. Doubt is challenging one’s beliefs in order to understand. Doubt is about taking new discoveries, on both an individual and a world level, and then attempting to understand how it clarifies and challenges previous understandings.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Doubt is not a threat to faith. In reality the reverse is true: doubt and questions help us strengthen our faith...it allows our minds and our hearts to grow with new insights and understandings.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Unbelieving” is different. “Unbelieving” suggests that Thomas is going through something other than doubting or questioning. And it is important that we understand what it is.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In one way, Thomas is just like the other disciples. They are all hiding away behind locked doors, out of fear of the authorities (not the Jews…I’ll say it yet again…everyone here is Jewish). None of them really believed Mary Magdalene when she told them that she’s seen the Lord. It’s only after that they see Jesus that they believe.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So then the disciples go and tell Thomas “We’ve seen the Lord.” And, just like the others, Thomas doesn’t believe words. He even makes an outrageous request: “Unless I see the mark of nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now, Thomas is asking for some serious proof. The question, is why? What’s going on here? Why this extreme reaction?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I think the answer can be found in what we know about Thomas. Earlier in John’s Gospel, when Jesus decides to go to Bethany to heal Lazarus, Thomas says to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (John 11:16)</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It’s another extreme reaction, but an understandable one. There was grave danger to Jesus in Bethany: people were already trying to kill him. Thomas knew that there was a good chance that none of them would survive such a trip. Thomas is professing a willingness to follow Jesus into very real danger. This is not someone who lacks faith.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But what has happened since then? In the garden, Thomas nerves got the best of him. He, like the other disciples, was not strong enough to remain with Jesus when he was arrested. Thomas gives in to fear.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And then, in the midst of feeling ashamed of himself, Thomas witnesses the worst thing possible: Jesus’ crucifixion, and the end to all of the hopes and dreams that Jesus had inspired.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Thomas’ heart was broken. There's a line of poetry that comes to mind, from Emily Dickerson...something that's hard to access when your heart is broken:</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hope is the thing with feathers, That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all.</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Can you imagine what Thomas was thinking as he walked through the streets? He must have been in pure agony. He must have hated himself right there and then. There was no way to go back: no way to change what he had done.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So consider what it must have sounded like to Thomas when the disciples came to him, saying that they had seen the Lord...</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It was too much to hope for. It was too much to believe. It was like saying that all was forgiven, and Thomas was not in a place where he was able to even consider the possibility of being forgiven.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In this context, we can begin to understand his outrageous claims of touching hands, feet and side. It wasn’t about Thomas doubting. It was about Thomas fearing.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is fear that is the opposite of faith. It is fear that keeps us from living the way God wants us to live. As I said on Easter, Mark’s Gospel ends with the women saying nothing because they are afraid, but it’s not just that one moment where fear creeps in. All of the events of Holy week are laced with fear. Not only did fear cause Thomas and the other disciples to flee, but Peter’s denial, Judas’ betrayal, Caiaphas’ plotting, and the crowd’s anger: they are all about fear. Even Jesus...at the table, in the garden, and on the cross...has to confront his own fears. Fear is a powerful, undeniable force in the world: whether we’re talking about 1st Century Palestine or 21st Century America.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But the miracle of Easter is that fear is not the end of the story. Jesus lives because he refused to give in to his fear: and brings us new life in faith, hope, and love.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is what Jesus offers to Thomas, with the words “And do not be unbelieving but believing.” Jesus offers Thomas what he needs to find life after fear and despair: new life found in hope and love.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And it’s Thomas, in choosing faith instead of fear, who then makes the boldest statement found in the Gospel: “My Lord and my God.”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What would it take for us, today, to challenge the fear that presently dominates our world?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What outrageous proof would we require to make us believe that we could end poverty and have economic justice...that we could peacefully address our differences...that we could acknowledge our wrongs and heal our pains....that we could preserve and care for our environment...that we could truly love our neighbors as ourselves?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Our fears tell us that these things are just not possible.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Gospels counter this by suggesting that God offers what we need to overcome fear. Thomas receives exactly what he needs to move past his fears, and Jesus promises we have what we need as well.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The ending…“Blessed are those who have not seen yet believe”…becomes a mantra for John’s audience (who live in the faith without the firsthand experience of the risen Christ). Rather than a putdown of Thomas’ disbelief, it is a statement for us all to stand fully in the hope of God.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Christians are called to be Easter people: that means people marked by hope. It is to permeate every aspect of our lives, and it is in hope that we work together to make God’s vision of love, peace, and justice come true.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Jesus tells us: “do not be unbelieving, but believing.”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hope is the thing with feathers, That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all.</span></b></span></div>
Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-90247236471694657862015-02-25T11:36:00.000-05:002015-02-25T11:45:53.998-05:00Tell the Story: Again...and Again<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In our Finance, Facilities, and Administration meeting last night, we were talking about bringing in new volunteers to church ministries, and I told the story of "everything I did wrong" with my first volunteer, Bryan, who served as a Sunday School leader. Someone asked if he "burnt out", and, with great emotion, I shared what ultimately happened.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I am grateful for that conversation, for Bryan's memory made me smile this morning. I am reminded to keep telling our stories. This one was originally published in August 2011:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(<i>For my friend, Bryan</i>)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Last week we heard the story of Joseph: from being sold into slavery by his brothers, to his rising in Egypt to considerable power. Ultimately, Joseph chooses to be reconciled to his brothers: realizing that even though they did evil to him, God sent him forward with great purpose.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">The high note that last story ended on is quickly dashed by this morning’s opening line :</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">“Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” (Exodus 1:8)</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">It may seem on the surface to only represent the passage of time, but it is so much more. Joseph and the former Pharaoh had became close. Joseph was a trusted and powerful person for Pharaoh, and the king respected him. There was unity between the Israelites and Egyptians, even in the midst of their differences. They lived for many years together in peaceful harmony: united for each others benefit.</span><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">But for some reason, the closeness ended. We don’t know why. Perhaps the peoples stopped working with one another, and stopped seeing benefits in each others differences. Ultimately, the stories of valuing each other were lost.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">And so, a new Pharaoh looked upon the Israelites as a numerous and powerful people, and started to fear them. “...they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">The new Pharaoh in this story is responsible for the change to hardship afflicted on the ancient Israelites. It is an all to familiar story of those with power getting fearful about losing it, and to preserve power they turn people against one another, creating discord where there is none. But it is worth remembering that peace and unity must be constantly worked at by everyone. The generations had the responsibility to not forget the relationship formed between Joseph and Pharaoh, Israelite and Egyptian.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">There are two other moments in this story that contain both a bit of humor and an important message. The Egyptian midwives to the Hebrew women, despite not having much power in their society, are held up as heroes. They defy Pharaoh himself to keep from killing the Israelite boys. (The funny part: only a man who has everything done for him would believe their story that Hebrew women give birth before the midwives can reach them...) And then there is the very daughter of Pharaoh who takes Moses as her own child. The humor in the story is that Moses’ mother is ultimately paid to nurse her own child. Of more importance to the reader is that, for some reason, Pharaoh’s daughter comes to the Nile to bathe, instead of her wealthy palace where she could of easily had her bath drawn. Is she coming specifically to look to save a Hebrew child? Or perhaps she felt dirty from the policies of the palace, and wished to bathe outside it to be mentally as well as physically clean. Clearly she uses her power to defy Pharaoh in her own way. The story establishes from the start that, among the Egyptians, at least the women worked against Pharaoh and his ruthlessness.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">I now want to remind you of my point in last week’s sermon.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">I suggested the Joseph story counters the popular saying “when God closes a door, God opens a window.” Joseph recognized that it was his brothers that had done evil: God did not cause the evil act...closing the door on his former life. God does not cause bad things to happen.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">God, however, may be the one who opens windows, by which I mean that is is often God who shows and sends us on a way forward. God sent Joseph forth into slavery, where he found both a new life and connection to the old. The promise of God is not that bad things won’t happen: what God promises is to be with us, even within the bad, and that it is never the end. Even in the midst of death and destruction, there is always new life.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">One can see how our lesson from last week informs these stories: despite the dark times within Pharaoh’s command to kill, both the midwives and Pharaoh’s daughter find their own way to serve God.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">But as it turns out, I personally needed a reminder of this...</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">In the summer of 2002, I came to Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland. They wanted me to be their Curate, but it was still (God willing) six months until my ordination, so I couldn’t be a Curate yet. They gave me the title of “Pastoral Associate”: my areas were to be youth and young adult ministries, coordinating pastoral care, and newcomers. One of my very first meetings with a newcomer was with a guy named Bryan Schwegler. He was younger than my 30 years (a bit rare for a church newcomer, for the most part), but I was amazed by the extent of his church experience and the depth in his search for a new church community. We sat and talked, and talked, and talked for a few hours in a coffee shop. Led by his enthusiasm (and perhaps my inexperience), I did two things you’re not supposed to do. First, it’s a bad idea to immediately put a newcomer into a position of responsibility. Second, you NEVER...EVER...place a newcomer in a position of working with youth. I did both: and it was one of the greatest calls I ever made. Bryan was a spectacular youth leader: greatly appreciated for his questioning and fun loving nature, and a wonderful mentor for the youth. He, along with his co-mentor Kim, journeyed with a group of Jr. High students as their mentor all the way to their High School graduations</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">I was blessed with a friendship that spanned my entire ministry at Trinity. He went to my ordinations, my installation as a Canon of the Cathedral, and was part of the farewell celebration to send Darlene and I off to New Hampshire. I in turn spent countless hours with him and Kim, led his confirmation class and was there at the celebration, and I also saw him become a member of Cathedral Council and worked with him there. Bryan was the first of what would become a core of young adult friends at Trinity that shared significant parts of our lives together.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">Bryan died Thursday night after a sudden, unexpected brain aneurism. I am stunned from the loss of my friend. I am sick with sadness for Adam, his beloved, for Barb, his mother, and for the many family and friends who are heartbroken.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">It is shocking when someone young dies suddenly. We are often compelled to as the unanswerable question: why. Was there some purpose in what has happened?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">It’s a complicated subject.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">I believe that there is no "purpose" in Bryan's death: in other words, God didn't do this for a reason...God didn't do this at all. I believe God’s actions in the aftermath of this difficult time are comfort and care of those who are hurting.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">But there’s more to the question of purpose. You see, Bryan lived with his life with great purpose. He was engaging, generous, and kind. He loved and was loved by family and friends. We who know him might think his life was too short, but we can also honestly say that he fully lived the life he had.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">And that leads us to this: as we are reminded that life is precious and fragile, we are called to live our lives with purpose.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">The unexpected death of someone we care about is a reminder to live our lives with a real sense of urgency. It is a reminder that real purpose in life comes in the sacred moments we share with others. Perhaps a moment like this might call you into action on behalf of others, as the midwives and Pharaoh’s daughters were...but at the very least, it is a reminder to not wait to tell others what they mean to you.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">“...a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">(Because no one continued to tell the stories.)</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">Don’t let this happen...</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">Tell and listen to your stories of one another.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">In doing so, you honor their memory: and with God, you find a way forward.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sPD5JWlakhQ/VO305eGs_EI/AAAAAAAAAUU/cxXX_SuYc-0/s1600/Bryan.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sPD5JWlakhQ/VO305eGs_EI/AAAAAAAAAUU/cxXX_SuYc-0/s1600/Bryan.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">Amen.</span></div>
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Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-13234053210754623222015-02-17T11:39:00.000-05:002015-02-17T11:39:10.548-05:00New Beginning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Darlene and I, and many of the people of St. Paul's Salt Lake City.</span></div>
Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-86582997777026702932015-01-01T11:40:00.000-05:002015-01-01T11:40:48.199-05:00Spirit moves...<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">I announced this past Sunday during services that I have decided to accept a call to be <a href="http://www.stpauls-slc.org/web/guest/epistle/-/blogs/our-new-rector-has-been-called" target="_blank">the next Rector of St. Paul's Church in Salt Lake City, Utah.</a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">While the Spirit has led me to saying “yes” to St. Paul’s, it is a bittersweet moment, for in doing so, I will have to say goodbye to the wonderful people of All Saints’ Littleton. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">Before making this announcement, I talked individually with all of Littleton’s vestry leadership. All of them were wonderfully gracious in expressing their joy for me, even while saying that they did not want me to go. There is one thing I am compelled to share. Liz Carter told me that, upon hearing this news, that she is “proud”: of what we’ve accomplished the last six years, of my moving onward in my career to a church like St. Paul’s, and in what she knows is to be a wonderful future for the community of All Saints’.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">This type of “proud” is what the people of All Saints’ should feel. This community has committed itself to the faithful all-around care of each other and our neighbor: sacred gathering celebrating God as Episcopalians, service to the community, spiritual growth in small group conversation, and lots of fun and good food!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">I will be present throughout the month of January, including the Annual Meeting, with my final Sunday being February 1st.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">I am grateful for the honor of having the opportunity to serve you these last six years as your Rector.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">Kurt</span></div>
Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-16076653360718174072014-12-07T19:05:00.000-05:002014-12-07T19:37:11.576-05:00Black Lives Matter<div class="p1">
<span style="color: #cccccc;">(A slightly revised version of this morning's sermon, at All Saints' Littleton NH.)</span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">"The Christian response to injustice is not passivity. It is not responding by saying, "it is because of our sinfulness" and then moving on.</span> </span></i></blockquote>
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<i><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">The Christian response to injustice is turning over the tables to reveal the truth of a God who is always on the side of the oppressed.</span> </span></i></blockquote>
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<i><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">It is responding non-violently in a world that demands violence.</span> </span></i></blockquote>
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<i><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">It is naming the racism, sexism, classism, all of the isms that seek to separate God's people from God and each other.”</span> </span></i></blockquote>
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<i><a href="https://celticwander.wordpress.com/"><span style="color: cyan;">@Celticwander (American Baptist Pastor)</span></a></i></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><a href="http://www.illdoctrine.com/">Jay Smooth</a>, founder of New York's longest running hip-hop radio show, writes on the decision not to have a trial concerning the death of Eric Garner by a New York City policeman:</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">"The man is unarmed. The chokehold is banned. The coroner ruled it a homicide. It is on video. None of this matters. I can't breathe.”</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">The past weeks have seen two grand juries issue decisions not to have a trial concerning high profile killing of black men by white police officers. It is important to note that these were not decisions of weighing the evidence to decide whether or not the officer was guilty or innocent, only whether or not their use of power warranted a trial. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s2"><a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/ferguson-michael-brown-indictment-darren-wilson/">Ben Casselman of the blog FiveThirtyEight</a></span><span class="s1"><a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/ferguson-michael-brown-indictment-darren-wilson/"> </a>observes:</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. attorneys prosecuted 162,000 federal cases in 2010, the most recent year for which we have data. Grand juries declined to return an indictment in 11 of them.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Wilson’s case was heard in state court, not federal, so the numbers aren’t directly comparable….Still, legal experts agree that, at any level, it is extremely rare for prosecutors to fail to win an indictment….Cases involving police shootings, however, appear to be an exception. </span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><a href="http://cccdean.blogspot.com/?m=1">Mike Kinman is the Dean of the Episcopal Cathedral in St. Louis</a>. He has been in the midst of things ever since Mike Brown was killed in Ferguson. He wrote a reflection on the <a href="http://cccdean.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-sacrament-of-uncomfortability.html?spref=fb&m=1">“Sacrament of uncomfortability”</a>:</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">"Because of our privilege, many of we who are white have for most of our lives been able to avoid extreme discomfort, to view things like racism as "issues" that we either choose to engage or not. But now, these voices are telling us it's not optional anymore. That we have to deal with it or they will "shut it down.”</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">And we are uncomfortable ... and confused ... and afraid ... and annoyed ... and even angry.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">And we find ourselves just wanting it all to go away. More and more over the past week, people have come to me saying how weary they are of the protests and "how come 'they' can't do something positive" and "why can't 'they' just tell us what they want" ... with the subtext being "so we can get back to being comfortable again." And shouldn't I be doing something productive and reasonable instead of encouraging this nonsense?</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">I feel that pain. I feel that weariness. The learning curve for we white people on this one is so, so steep (I know it is for me) because most of our own previous experiences of pain and weariness ... though certainly profound and real to us ... have not prepared us to encounter the extraordinary pain and weariness people of color have in this country just trying to live every day of their lives.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">Jesus was never one to preach comfortability. In fact, the Gospels paint a pretty clear picture of a Jesus who invited us to leave our places of comfort behind and follow him. To give up something good for the sake of something better.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">To have faith and a willingness to risk.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">To embrace the sacrament of uncomfortability.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">That is where Christ is calling us today. To resist the temptation to flee from the uncomfortablity, to lash out at the uncomfortability or even to reach for the quick and easy fix for the uncomfortability.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">If uncomfortability is a sacrament, and I believe it is, then we need to lean into it ... to dive into it even. We need to feel it deeply, knowing that it leads us to the very heart of Christ.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">If you are annoyed, angry, confused and weary by the demonstrators, I really do feel you. This is a hard time. But Christ calls us to do what is hard and promises to walk with us every step of the way. So I urge you, instead of lashing out or throwing up your hands in despair ... instead of dismissing the protesters as "thugs" or criticizing their methods ... instead lean in.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">There are lots of slogans out there right now, and arguably the loudest is the phrase “BLACK LIVES MATTER”.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><a href="http://sojo.net/blogs/2014/12/04/blacklivesmatter-why-we-need-stop-replying-all-lives-matter#.VICEvOfKXHI.facebook">Pastor Adam Phillips, an Evangelical, writes on Sojourners</a>:</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">"The apostle Paul teaches us in the New Testament that when any one member of the body of Christ suffers, we all suffer. Russell Moore, just yesterday, spoke out on behalf of Southern Baptists saying: “We may not agree in this country on every particular case and situation, but it’s high time we start listening to our African American brothers and sisters in this country when they tell us they are experiencing a problem.”</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">This is one of those instances where, yes, members of the body of Christ, citizens of this nation, neighbors, and friends are suffering. And we need to listen.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">And we need to knock off the passive aggressive response ALL LIVES MATTER. We all agree with that. Right now we need to declare with one voice, until things really change, that yes, indeed, #BLACKLIVESMATTER”</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><a href="http://zeek.forward.com/articles/118430/#.VHPFQ_1XxTh.facebook">Rabbi Susan Talve of Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis wrote this</a> after the grand jury verdict:</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">"The past three months have challenged us to 'walk the walk' as a congregation. As a community that embraces Jews of color, and has always been committed to challenging the injustices of racism in St. Louis, we could not stand idly by as Michael Brown's death touched a nerve throughout the nation, and forced St. Louis to confront the reality that there are two Fergusons, and two Americas. We have police officers in our congregation and our families, yet we must not be afraid to demand accountability from law enforcement that practices racial profiling and provocation and has done so for many years. Our core values of being a civil-minded and justice-seeking congregation guide us and challenge us to be part of the budding solution. I stand with the protestors because they are calling for a serious confrontation with institutional racism and I believe that we all need to do this work. I stand with the protestors because they have kept the peace for over 100 days by promoting non-violent civil disobedience and providing ways for many who are frustrated and angry to express themselves through marching, acts of civil disobedience and building memorials to those who have died, and by showing us what democracy looks like."</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">So far, we’ve heard only from white voices. The call to listen deeply goes farther. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">The great African American writer Langston Hughes published these words in 1931:</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">“That Justice is a blind goddess </span><span class="s1">Is a thing to which we black are wise. </span><span class="s1">Her bandage hides two festering sores </span><span class="s1">That once perhaps were eyes.”</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">Michael Brown's family's stated: "Let's not just make noise, let's make a difference.” As these grand jury decisions were announced, and people took to the streets, black persons also responded online. These are just some of the responses of people I saw: some are well known persons, others not. It's not about whether you agree or disagree with everything that follows, but rather, that you take in what people are feeling and saying:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">To believe that the United States is post-racial requires an almost incomprehensible inability or unwillingness to stare truth in the face.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Michael Khords (@MichaelKhords) <a href="https://twitter.com/MichaelKhords/status/540244025916551168">December 3, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">As it stands, there is no amount of force an officer can use that isn’t unjustified, regardless of the situation.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) <a href="https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/540241976604786688">December 3, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">10. Do not talk about reconciliation if you are not willing to take a reconciling step. Don't pray for justice if you won't work for it.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Joshua DuBois (@joshuadubois) <a href="https://twitter.com/joshuadubois/status/540241361686241280">December 3, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">Systemic racism. Emptiness. Anger. Sadness. Heartbreak. The concerned people of the world ask, where is justice in America? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Ferguson?src=hash">#Ferguson</a></span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Omar Moore (@popcornreel) <a href="https://twitter.com/popcornreel/status/537090405976653824">November 25, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><a href="https://twitter.com/BroderickGreer">@BroderickGreer</a> Me too. I can't remember when I've felt so sad and even lost.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Crystal S. Lewis (@CrystalLewis) <a href="https://twitter.com/CrystalLewis/status/540362459392258049">December 4, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">Facts are facts. I don't have them all. But I do know I fear for the lives of Black American males. This is my reality.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Lecrae (@lecrae) <a href="https://twitter.com/lecrae/status/537074457190604801">November 25, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">What should we say to our sons who have been told this is a “different America” than the one their grandparents grew up in?<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FergusonDecision?src=hash">#FergusonDecision</a></span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Michael Steele (@MichaelSteele) <a href="https://twitter.com/MichaelSteele/status/537080635916320768">November 25, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">Body cameras aren't the key to justice. Without accountability, nothing will ever change. The family of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/EricGarner?src=hash">#EricGarner</a> deserved better.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Edward Bowser (@etbowser) <a href="https://twitter.com/etbowser/status/540241162721042432">December 3, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">And I expect justice. I expect Justice. I expect Justice. I expect Justice.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Austin Channing (@austinchanning) <a href="https://twitter.com/austinchanning/status/537107014837891072">November 25, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">Our democracy is a work in progress( at best). It is our job to create a nation that has not yet been born.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Otis Moss, III (@om3) <a href="https://twitter.com/om3/status/537101550142103552">November 25, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">Cynicism is easy, destruction requires no thought, movements take work, require courage, demand commitment and mandate love.
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Fergsuon?src=hash">#Fergsuon</a></span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Otis Moss, III (@om3) <a href="https://twitter.com/om3/status/537105682206834689">November 25, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">There's something perverse and sad about that. No one has more hope in this country than Black people do. Honestly.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Tọ́pẹ́ Fádìran (@graceishuman) <a href="https://twitter.com/graceishuman/status/537101955693543425">November 25, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">"Regardless of the outcome, this entire process has been a farce, inside a cruel joke, wrapped in an insult." <a href="https://twitter.com/VanJones68">@VanJones68</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Ferguson?src=hash">#Ferguson</a></span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Van Jones (@VanJones68) <a href="https://twitter.com/VanJones68/status/537009450469838849">November 24, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">I didn't know it was possible to feel more unsafe.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Ashley Ford (@iSmashFizzle) <a href="https://twitter.com/iSmashFizzle/status/537101914207682560">November 25, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">If you don't know and understand why are so many people are lamenting, please learn to mourn with those who mourn <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/evangelicals4justice?src=hash">#evangelicals4justice</a></span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— David Bailey (@davidmbailey) <a href="https://twitter.com/davidmbailey/status/537099968927252480">November 25, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">What d'ya mean, 'what we gonna do?' We gonna do what we been doing: fight, march and pray. In that order. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FergusonDecision?src=hash">#FergusonDecision</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wewhobelieve?src=hash">#wewhobelieve</a></span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Renita Weems (@somethingwithin) <a href="https://twitter.com/somethingwithin/status/537094944297852928">November 25, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">You don't have to be surprised to be heartbroken.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Tayari Jones (@tayari) <a href="https://twitter.com/tayari/status/537065654147624961">November 25, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Marin Luther King, Jr. quotes abound everywhere, sometimes, ironically, in criticism of protesters. <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mlk-a-riot-is-the-language-of-the-unheard/">Three years after the “I have a Dream” speech, King sat down with Mike Wallace</a>. He still advocated non-violence as the ultimate way forward, but was clear in his understanding of when violence happened:</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">“I think that we've got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. And, what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years.”</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">"A riot is the language of the unheard." </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">---Martin Luther King, Jr.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">In many ways, Littleton NH seems worlds away from all that is happening. And yet, thanks to Twitter and Facebook, I witnessed so many of these reactions in real time, concerning both the Ferguson and Stanton Island decisions. You can likely tell that many things said by African Americans caught my attention, but perhaps because I am now expecting a child, it was this response by Petty LaBelle on Twitter that keeps coming back to me:</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">My 7 year old son just said: "Don't worry mom. If we want to live, we just have to stay home". I'm turning off my tv. My heart just broke</span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Petty LaBelle (@d_Sassy1ne) <a href="https://twitter.com/d_Sassy1ne/status/537078619609501696">November 25, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">The next morning, she rallied, and proclaimed:</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">I don't have the answers. What I do have is an opinion on these times....and a child who now has so many questions.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">— Petty LaBelle (@d_Sassy1ne) <a href="https://twitter.com/d_Sassy1ne/status/537223991766052865">November 25, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">In 1962, James Baldwin wrote these words in his book ”The Fire Next Time”:</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">"Everything now, we must assume, is in our hands; we have no right to assume otherwise. If we—and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others—do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world."</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1" style="color: yellow;"><i>The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1" style="color: yellow;"><i>As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,</i></span></blockquote>
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<i><span style="color: yellow;"><span class="s1">“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,</span><span class="s1">who will prepare your way;</span> the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: </span></i></blockquote>
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<i><span style="color: yellow;">‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="s1" style="color: yellow;"><i>John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Listen deeply....</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Breathe…</span></span></div>
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Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-1520354157378425402014-12-03T16:02:00.002-05:002014-12-03T16:04:38.611-05:00No indictments are an indictment <div class="p1 tr_bq">
<span class="s1" style="color: #cccccc;">I have no words myself, but a profound sense of sorrow and anger...</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">That Justice is a blind goddess Is a thing to which we black are wise. Her bandage hides two festering sores That once perhaps were eyes.</span> </span></b></blockquote>
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<b><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">---Langston Hughes</span></span></b></blockquote>
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<b><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1">"A riot is the language of the unheard." </span> </span></b></blockquote>
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<span class="s1" style="color: #cccccc;"><b>---Martin Luther King, Jr.</b></span></blockquote>
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Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-83941779871587703992014-11-13T10:25:00.002-05:002014-11-13T10:30:01.871-05:00Anonymous trolls and online gaming<br />
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<span class="s1">Wil Wheaton, actor, writer and gamer, makes it clear: "It's time to name names". </span></div>
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<span class="s1">His subject is gaming: where people online anonymously produce venomous words and threats of violence. He writes in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/11/anonymous-trolls-are-destroying-online-games-heres-how-to-stop-them/">The Washington Post</a>:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">To be sure, anonymity online has it uses and is very important. Governments hoover up people’s telephone and e-mail records without oversight, and companies track astonishingly granular personal information. If we want dissent in places where it would otherwise be quashed, whistleblowers to come forward, investigative journalism, and people who can feel like their authentic selves, they need tools like the Tor browser and GnuPGP to let them speak their minds with impunity. In the age of total-information awareness, citizens need certain protections. </span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">But in the gaming community, those protections aren’t necessary, and they aren’t helping. Anonymous trolls have made the gaming community toxic — especially for women — and upended the industry at a time when the games we play are finally being recognized as the incredible works of art that they can be. While I don’t believe bad actors represent gaming culture’s mainstream, I feel sure they wouldn’t issue rape and death threats, or harass other gamers, if they would be held accountable for their actions.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Wheaton highlights the principles of sportsmanship and full knowledge that the opponent is a living person, and that the situation of competition is temporary. So it does matter how we react to the results of the game:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I’ve seen players fight for every point in tournaments, then graciously congratulate each other, regardless of who won. I’ve sat down with complete strangers — just like the random person I’d likely encounter online — and had an absolutely wonderful time being obliterated by them, because not only were they more skilled than I was, they were also nice and decent human beings. </span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Wheaton's pitch for funding his independent online show, <a href="http://geekandsundry.com/shows/tabletop/">TableTop</a>, is framed by this spirit:</span></div>
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Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-56467710222776164262014-11-06T11:46:00.000-05:002014-11-07T10:38:48.144-05:00Sacred Ground<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another of our current Christian Formation series is our book study, <i>Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America</i> by Eboo Patel.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One of Patel's defining points is the concept of "sacred ground". Patel writes in his introduction:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The strangest part of the Cordoba House debate for me was the idea of sacred ground. The people opposed to Cordoba House insisted that the blocks around Ground Zero constituted a holy area. Those who believed Cordoba House ought to stay in Lower Manhattan liked to point to the nearby strip joint and off-track betting parlor and say that that patch of land is just like any other. "Why can't you just move it ten or twenty blocks away?" a CNN anchor asked me on air at the height of the controversy. But that would still be sacred ground, I thought to myself. A hundred miles north, a thousand miles south, two thousand miles west---it's all holy. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I believe every inch of America is sacred, from sea to shining sea. I believe we make it holy by who we welcome and by how we relate to each other. Call in my Muslim eyes on the American project. "We made you different nations and tribes that you may come to know one another, " says the Qur'an. There is no better place on earth than America to enact that vision. It is part of the definition of our nation.... </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pluralism is not a birthright in America; it's a responsibility. Pluralism does not fall from the sky; it does not rise up from the ground. <i>People</i> have fought for pluralism. <i>People</i> have kept the promise. America is exceptional not because there is magic in our air but because there is fierce determination in our citizens. "The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults," Alexis de Tocqueville wrote. Every generation has to affirm and extend the American promise."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What are the places that we consider sacred? Why so? What makes them sacred? </span><br />
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Patel seems to be suggesting that one part of honoring sacred ground is honoring pluralism: a land with many peoples. How do people embrace their "responsibility" for seeing and holding things sacred; redeeming assumptions and broken relationships with people different from them?</span><br />
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<br />Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-38822679269599735212014-10-17T08:47:00.005-04:002014-10-17T09:12:44.830-04:00God and Jesus: no bill to be paid...a union to be named<div class="p1">
<i><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1">This Fall, we have two groups of people at All Saints' Littleton gathering for Christian Formation/Spiritual Growth by exploring a video series called </span><b>Embracing an Alternative Orthodoxy: Richard Rohr on the Legacy of St. Francis</b>. I will be posting some of what we hear from Rohr and his conversation with a group of Episcopalians on the blog, in hope that people beyond our group may participate.</span></i></div>
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<span class="s1"><u><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Beginning of Session One: Two viewpoints...</span></u></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Western theology mainline position: Jesus died for our sins.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Based on Dominican argument, using quotes from the New Testament, that a transaction was necessary to make humanity alright with God…and that transaction was the death of Jesus.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Creates a barrier to mystic exploration: God's love had to be bought...</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Franciscan minority viewpoint within Western Christianity: used other New Testament texts to illustrate that the Christ existed for all eternity, and so Jesus’ life is part of God’s inherent love for creation.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Jesus did not come to change God's mind about humanity...God's mind didn't need change...Jesus came to change humanity on the idea of God!”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">No bill to be paid...a union to be named.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://www.churchpublishing.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=landingpage&pageID=34&categoryID=584">The Embracing Series can be found here</a>, and this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9Azd93Luko">Richard Rohr video is up as a sample on YouTube</a>.</span></div>
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Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-24629036590721735402014-09-25T11:26:00.001-04:002014-09-25T11:34:06.920-04:00More U2 conversation: Christian band?<div class="p1">
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/faith_and_culture/the_open_secret_of_the_gospel.html">Episcopal Cafe covered some more U2 conversation</a>, the often discussed "Christian band?" question:</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This just in. U2 is a <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/church-u2">"semi-secret Christian band"</a> that fills their lyrics with religious themes, makes no secret of how the members attempt to live their faith but does not aligns itself with a particular denomination or segment of the Church.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2014/09/18/u2-secretly-christian-heres-new-yorker-missed/">Jonathan Merritt is not surprised</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If you carefully attune your ears to U2’s lyrics, you’ll find there are 50 or more references to Bible verses in their songs. In “Bullet the Blue Sky,” for example, they sing about Jacob wrestling with the Angel of the Lord (Genesis 32) and there is a reference to speaking with “the tongues of angels” (1 Corinthians 13) in “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Bono even belts “see the thorn twist in your side”—an obvious reference to the Apostle Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 12:7—in the song “With or Without You.”</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If by "Christian rock band" you mean a group that repetitively parroting pop-culture with theologically homogenized lyrics then, no, U2 is not a "Christian rock band." If you mean a band that takes a more complex view of faith and life, then that's something else. Maybe what you have is a rock band peopled by Christians.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/church-u2">Joshua Rothman profiles the group in The New Yorker</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Much of the confusion around U2’s faith stems from the fact that they’ve never been an “officially” Christian rock band. The ambiguity goes back to the band’s origins, in the Dublin of the late seventies, during the Troubles. In a country divided along sectarian lines, little about organized religion was attractive. U2 were teen-agers when they got together (Larry Mullen, Jr., the drummer, was just fourteen), but they were beginning to see outside of the faith traditions of their families. Bono’s father was a Catholic, his mother an Anglican. Adam Clayton (the bassist, English) and David Evans (the Edge, Welsh) came from Protestant backgrounds; Mullen had Irish-Catholic parents. In “North Side Story: U2 in Dublin, 1978-1983,” Niall Stokes, the editor of the Irish music magazine Hot Press, writes that the members of U2 were “primed” to ask what it meant to be Irish. They were “as close as you could get at the time, in an Ireland that was monocultural to an extraordinary degree, to a licorice all-sorts of nationalities and faiths.”Their break with organized religion was probably inevitable. But it was still traumatic, which is perhaps why almost every U2 album contains a song about their decision to belong to a band rather than a church. (“One,” for example, is about the challenges of joining together with your friends to try and find God on your own.) Greg Garrett, an English professor at Baylor, a Baptist university in Waco, Texas, explains U2’s lack of religious identification in his book “We Get to Carry Each Other: The Gospel According to U2.” In high school, Bono, the Edge, and Mullen grew close to a faith community called Shalom, whose members Bono has described as living on the Dublin streets “like first-century Christians.” The group was a big presence in their lives during the recording of U2’s first two albums, “Boy” and “October” (“Gloria,” the best song on “October,” has a liturgical chorus, sung in Latin). The turning point came just as the “October” tour was set to begin: the Edge announced that he wanted to leave U2, because the twin demands of piety and rock stardom could not be reconciled. (“If God had something to say about this tour, he should have raised his hand a little earlier,” the band’s manager, Paul McGuinness, said.) Ultimately, of course, U2 stayed together: Bono, Mullen, and the Edge left Shalom. “I realized it was bullshit, that what these people were getting close to … was denial, rather than willful surrender,” Bono told an interviewer.</span></span> </span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The tension in spiritual life—between discipline and vulnerability, order and openness, being willful and giving in—became U2’s central preoccupation, and gave it its aesthetic. During the Troubles, the band witnessed the consequences of an approach to faith that had become too organized and martial. Against that, they argued for “surrender,” in both its political and its religious senses. When Bono ran around onstage with a white flag during performances of “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” he was expressing not only an approach to politics but also an approach to faith (often, the song suggested, they were the same thing). U2 were learning to infuse their music with a sensibility that had been unreachable in their religious lives—a kind of militant surrendering.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is always important to mention that U2 is NOT part of the Christian music industry, which tends to frown on deep exploration and anything that suggests ways to God other than Christianity. The faith journey found in U2's music continues to resinate in me, and millions of other fans (watch any of their concert videos to explore this idea). I can't wait until they tour with these new songs...</span></span></div>
Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2133123698368438199.post-14883795482704655192014-09-10T12:44:00.003-04:002014-09-10T12:49:41.092-04:00NEW U2 ALBUM!!!<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Not only did U2 surprise everyone by releasing <b>Songs of Innocence</b> yesterday, their 13th album, but now it appears that there will be a SECOND album in the not to distance future, <b>Songs of Experience</b>!!!</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.atu2.com/news/bono-stay-tuned-for-another-u2-album-songs-of-experience.html" target="_blank">Matt McGee of @atu2 speculates</a>:</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That's from a letter to U2 fans posted a short time ago on U2.com where Bono basically re-introduces the band after the long hiatus between albums. In addition to talking about today's album release, he says we can expect a second album (while also admitting that he's said that in the past): </span></span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>"We're collaborating with Apple on some cool stuff over the next couple of years, innovations that will transform the way music is listened to and viewed. We'll keep you posted. If you like Songs of Innocence, stay with us for Songs of Experience. It should be ready soon enough… although I know I've said that before…" </i></span></span> </span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You might recognize the titles from your high school literature classes: There's a famous book of poetry by William Blake called <i>Songs of Innocence and of Experience</i>.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Been listening threw my work today to Innocence: this is epic work....</span></span></div>
Kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12359553690204479581noreply@blogger.com0