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Thursday, December 10, 2009

Zephaniah 3:14-20

Sorry for the month's absence.

This Sunday we'll hear from another prophet, Zephaniah and we light the "Joy" candle in the wreath. So in Advent we're still carrying the images from the past few weeks: Christ the King, hope and peace; and now we're moving on to joy and then love.

Here are some questions to weigh-in on:

What is joy like? We've been doing these short advent skits that relate to the day's theme, and hope/peace didn't seem so hard, but how do you act out joy? Just be happy? Big smiles? What kind of feeling is joy, deep in our insides? As an adult, and lately a busy, sometimes highly-stressed adult, I can have an almost non-existent feeling about what joy even is. I definitely have a feeling for what joy isn't. So maybe start there with this question, start with those feelings that are anti-joy, or joyless.

When is joy sincere? I think that first question for me draws on pictures of kids coming down the stairs on Xmas morning and seeing what Santa brought, or at least that sort of thing - the emotion, excitement, etc. But does that kind of material satisfaction get anywhere near God's desire for joy? Maybe?

I bust on Christians all the time for thinking we gotta walk around and smile like goobers and say "have a nice day" wherever we go; insincere sugary junk doesn't jive with my understanding of faith. But as Jesus-followers we're still expected, even sometimes ordered, to rejoice. So what's the real deal? What is joy like on occasions where it just doesn't seem right to be happy-go-lucky?


Read Zephaniah. Think about this vague word, "joy". And we're going to take a look at some of our favorite movie/story "happy-endings" to see if we know how to rejoice anymore...

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Ruth 3:1-15

Continuing in the story of Ruth. And after seeing Donald Miller a few weeks ago (he's a writer), I remembered his whole take on Bible stories. He pointed out how whack it is for us to hear these stories, that we believe are a part of the greater epic of God & us, and always try to boil them down to some lesson or life application on Sundays. Don made the point of how rude that is.

It's like what if a good friend came up and said they had some important jive to tell us, to talk about, and all we did was look at our watch and say "get to the part that affects me, that changes my life; give me the three concise points of your story and tell me why I should care"?

Obviously the Bible applies to us, or so we say/hope, but isn't there power in a good story? The book named "Ruth" is a good story. Just read Ruth 1 and 2 and then 3:1-15 to see where we are at this point for Sunday. Maybe read it several times to really get up in there and experience it. See what it makes you wonder...

I've been wondering about: the whole idea of a "kinsman-redeemer", what that meant in the old school days, and how does it compare to what Jesus does? Also, wouldn't it have been hard for anybody to care much for Ruth, her being from Moab, and Israel having been at war with Moab for years and years at that time. Were people mean to her, what was it like for her and Naomi to come home that way? What did people say about them? How is Boaz such a righteous dude to her (I also wonder how old he is, it makes him sound old...)? Getting to the end of the book of Ruth, what did this story mean to Jews who kept it, wrote it down, and cherished it? Do we take it to heart, and/or what does it mean to Christians?

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Ruth 2:1-12

Part 2 in the Ruth story. Naomi and Ruth have no idea how this thing will pan out, but some things start taking shape right away. While Naomi is in the pit of her sorrow, Ruth gets on with caring for the two of them. These two women, two widows (Ruth a foreign Moabite), are struggling at the bottom of the social structure. Ruth can only go work in the fields, vulnerable to who-knows-what as an unaccompanied woman among the harvest workers. And while Ruth tries to gather the leftovers of the barley harvest, she happens to find herself in the field of one of Naomi's extended family, Boaz. And Boaz happens to have heard of these two women, and happens to greatly respect their plight.

Ruth 2 starts to see some turnaround for Ruth and Naomi, and a lot of coincidence (providence?) in the process. Naomi will have her hope again, and Ruth a future. Why? Because 1) Ruth headed down the road with Naomi, and 2) she never quit.

Where do we find ourselves in the story?
Ruth 1:1-18

It's All-Saints' Sunday, our church holiday to celebrate those faithful we've known and loved who aren't alive on earth anymore. All Saints or "All Hallows" is part of where we get Halloween (the night before "All Hallows" = All Hallows Eve = Hallows e'en = Halloween).

To me I think Halloween draws out mixed feelings in people. Some love it, some not so much. On one hand it can just be fellowship time, parties, fall colors, candy and costumes and maybe an innocent scare. On the other hand, all of the above can definitely be taken to a not-so-healthy extreme. And some folks definitely make use of the day to try to tap into some truly dark things. At the heart of the multiple personalities of Halloween, to me, is the conglomeration of how cultures over time have dealt with the major topics of this time of year: death, the other-worldly and the spiritual.

Practically every human culture has found ways to cope with grief, loss, death, and the utter fear/unknown that can accompany all of that. So much of what we do ties back to Celtic/Gaelic, Roman and Asian tradition. For instance, at this time of year ancient Europeans found themselves at the time of the grain harvest (and butchering of livestock) in preparation for winter. The days were transitioning from long and sunlit to shorter, darker, heading into the deadly cold-weather season; so, yes, death, grief and fear were maybe on the mind. This time of year, to many, was when the veil between the spiritual realm and the land of the living was at its thinnest. The result is a time when "ghosts" wandered abroad, so people dressed up like spiritual things in order to either blend in and not be harmed, or to scare off the paranormal. Remembering lost loved ones, and wondering about the year to come, divination became common as folks tried to speak to the dead.

What we have, then, is a picture of human beings trying to deal with the grief of life, and the uncertainty of a future where death was so common. Could be that Halloween practice became an expression of all of that fear, and an attempt at some control, or some comfort.

And up and against all of that came the church's teaching, and the perspective on death that comes with faith that Jesus is the Christ. In ancient days of the Church, we have an entirely different tone given to remembering the dead and looking ahead into the unknown future - one of celebration and hope. When early Christians were put to death for their faith, like John the Baptist, nearly every Apostle, Stephen and so many more, those who remained would take note of where/when they were martyred and celebrate that anniversary each year almost as a "birthday" feast for the saints. The believers saw death as the beginning of that new adventure that is eternal life in Christ Jesus. Eventually there were so many martyrs that every day of the year would've been swamped, such that eventually the church chose a single day to honor them, and that day was later expanded to celebrate all the faithful, on November 1st each year.

Celebration. Feast in the face of death, rather than grappling for control, or turning to some other coping mechanism. Faith in death as a starting point in the kingdom of God. It's another way to express ourselves at Halloween.

And it's the same idea in the story of Ruth that we begin on Sunday. The story of famine and the death of Naomi's husband and sons (Ruth's husband) in a foreign land. Ruth is given the choice in the midst of that grief to cash out and go home. But instead she clings to Naomi and Naomi's people, and Naomi's God. And they head down an uncertain road together.

And the universe would never be the same.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Well, it's homecoming Sunday at Bethel, so Ernie Nivens is preaching. At Philadelphia we're going to get into 1 John 5:1-4. Read it. I hear in it a lot of talk about connection. First, love for Christ is connected to new birth, which is connected to having a new family. Loving our fellow children of God is connected to obedience:

"This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands."

So, our ability to love people is tied to our faith/action? But what about all those ways I can love people that seem to have nothing to do with my beliefs? There are thousands of NGOs and non-profits that offer Americans the chance to try to love their fellow man, regardless of religion, right?

What about all those ways I disobey or disregard God that only affect me? It's a personal decision, isn't it, between me and God?

Maybe, maybe, 1 John 5 says otherwise. Maybe there are connections in our midst that are real and influential.

There's a group of folks who work in this field of interpersonal connection, it's called "small world theory," and it gets into complicated math or other ways to track how humans interact all over the globe. One way for the math to boil down into easier terms is to just look at somebody's KB#. Or, their "Kevin Bacon Number". That's right.

Somebody's Kevin Bacon Number is the number of people it takes to link them back to Kevin Bacon (usually just for actors through movies that they co-starred in with Mr. Bacon). It comes from this idea that there are no more than "six degrees of separation" between Kevin Bacon and every other actor alive or dead. For instance, let's try actor Val Kilmer. Val was in Top Gun with Tom Cruise, and Tom Cruise was in A Few Good Men with Kevin Bacon. That gives Val Kilmer a Kevin Bacon number of 2.

KB#'s are an image of our connectedness, and the idea carries over to all of us, that roughly no more than six people separate us all. Picture every human on earth and start drawing lines that connect us, and it's a huge spiderweb that is very connected.

That being said, keeping that spiderweb picture in our minds, imagine how good and evil flows along those connections from me to you, and you to me, and everywhere. Love and hate, mercy and judgment, giving and greed, justice and oppression, etc. etc. Imagine how our words and deeds travel all over the earth. It's kinda like the idea in the movie Pay it Forward.

That's where 1 John makes more sense to me, seeing that so much of us is so connected to so much of everybody else, it matters how we define our love for other people, it matters what guides our words/thoughts/deeds when it comes to loving people, it matters what we believe and how that shapes how we connect to others. Because maybe only six people separate us from the entire globe.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Job 38:1-10

We wrap up with a final look at Job. Tragedy has struck, his friends have come and flapped their gums and Job has responded. Here in Job 38, God finally responds and speaks. Right away, like some scholars point out, we see that God is NOT answering the questions we've brought up in worship the past two weeks. God doesn't tell Job "why" it's all happened and we don't really hear "where" God's been all this time. Instead, God makes it a "who" question...like "Job, who do you think you are?" and "Who do you think I am?"

We should've known that suffering oughta be a "who" question, but don't we always find ways to treat other people, and God, and personal things as impersonal? Like, on Saturday night I was watching the South Carolina-Alabama game, and to me football is definitely one of those "people treating people impersonally" kinda things.

What I mean is, players on the field can't help but treat their opponents as slightly impersonal - if I'm a linebacker and my job is to destroy such-and-such running back, then do you think I'll spend my time before the snap considering what a lovely personality said halfback has? Will I daydream about his relationship with his mother, or his second-grade nickname, or how he might feel when I tackle him? Negative. All that personal nonsense might take some of my edge off, it gets in the way of what's running through my head - "DESTROY #25 WHEN HE TOUCHES THE BALL." It's similar for the fans, there has to be some suspension of personal humanity to really yell at the other team for no good reason over a football game. But it's nothing personal.

Anyway, during the game, a Carolina player named Moe Brown caught a pass very close to the goal line and had his head/neck sandwiched between two players. He lay limp on the field, all the coaching staff ran out to him, got him on the backboard, and he gave the "thumbs up" heading off the field. And for a moment, the game became human/personal, people talked about who Moe Brown is as a senior captain, and both sides of players and fans cheered when he seemed okay (even though MOST were Alabama fans). All of that is to say, somewhere deep inside most of us I think it makes sense that suffering and hurt demands a personal, human response. In suffering we gotta consider each other's feelings, we need each other, we need real human support (and how about God?).

So, Job's friends failed as good friends because they failed to treat Job like a who. They didn't seem real concerned with Job's humanity, with his pain and feelings, with the actual suffering man, but just kept talking about Job's situation. It's like it was a case study for them. They pondered theology and regurgitated "wisdom". Job's friends didn't treat God like much of a who either - again, God was just an object of study here.

Satan's character in Job (Chs 1 and 2) points to the deep who questions of suffering, too. As the accuser/adversary, he points at God and humans and strikes at who we all are. Satan implies that God is a fool for thinking people could truly love him, saying that people are only obedient/good so that God will give them good things. And with Job, isn't Satan trying to wield suffering to get the man to doubt who God is, to call God evil and ultimatlely renounce his allegiance to Yahweh? It's a two-pronged attack striking at about the biggest deal in all Creation: the relationship between God and us.

But in the end, through all 38 chapters, Job hasn't renounced God. He's gotten close to blasphemy, for sure, but he never loses sight that God is a who. Job talks to God, pours out all his feeling to God, and won't quit. In the end, Job's friends are silent, Satan is nowhere to be found (so we can assume Job has survived the challenge), and God speaks back. Too many of us see God almost smacking Job down with strong language about how big God is and small Job is. But let's understand that God didn't have to speak to Job at all.

But God does, and it's a word that let's Job know that he doesn't have to try to be in charge, he doesn't need all the "why's" and "where's" and "how's" answered, as long as he holds onto the faith that's kept him alive so far - faith based on a personal God who hears and answers.

Maybe the overall question is, when suffering comes to us would we rather have a book of answers, and the background info, or would we rather just have a good, present, LIVING, loving God? Assuming we can't have both, which do we prefer?

Friday, October 9, 2009

Job 23:1-17

After last week, all the tragedy striking Job's life but his staying faithful and not blaming God, Job's friends show up. And we skip to chapter 23. Why? Because those 20-some chapters are full of he and his friends talking about all kinds of nonsense. No, but for real, Job's friends present to him over and over what most religious experts, wise people, the "learned" would've told him - "just stop being sinful, Job, and God will hook things up for you again. God is good but we humans are so sinful that suffering is just God's way of giving you what you deserve. It must be that you have some hidden sin in your life, that's why your success is gone." Funny...I've heard that...before, somewhere....

Aaand, over and over Job lets these cats know that they're wrong. He doesn't claim to be perfect or totally "sinless" but he knows he's lived pretty righteously and loves God. And that never changed, but still
*ka-blam* he had all this stuff happen to him. You can hear in Job's voice how aggravated these guys are making him. On top of his suffering, the "wisdom of the day" is accusing him of deserving it all...seems like his friends just bring more mental suffering.

In the face of that jive-talk, Job longs for God to come to his defense, let him know he's not crazy, and more. So, chapt. 23 is about Job's question, "where can I find God?" Isn't that a big part of how we react to evil/suffering on earth...do you ever wish you could just summon God, or go to his house and get an explanation? Or explain your own case, or seek his help/comfort? When we hurt why doesn't God always just show up?

It kinda, only
kind of, reminds me of parents raising young kids...there comes that time when the kids are left to sleep in their own room. For the first time, alone, in the dark. In that child's world their need for comfort is sometimes very real, but many parents learn not to answer their baby's cries every time, or else baby will learn that mom/dad will always come a-runnin'. And the crying will continue. Let's face it, every child craves the presence of a good parent. But a good parent knows that their child can learn to face the dark on his/her own. 'Cause mom/dad can't be there every time, but that doesn't mean baby isn't somehow cared for or provided for.

In some ways that's a terrible analogy to our relationship with God, because the evil/suffering in the world is way more substantial than being afraid of the dark, and because, no, I don't think God wants us all to just "quit being babies" and grow up and stop calling for him and fend for ourselves. That is NOT the idea.

But parents teaching children about bedtime illustrates that the real thing at stake here is our need for God's love/presence. And it's hard because no matter how much we want it, we can't just make God appear. So now the question becomes, can we trust that God has reasons for not coming running every time? When God isn't where we want him to be, the way we want him, all the time, can we still believe that we're
absolutely cared for?

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Job 2:1-10

Done with James, now we've got a few weeks in Job. So, like some of us know the book digs into what's up with God letting "bad things happen to good people"? Big question. We all ask it, right? And when we all witness heinous things on this earth, it's easy to start to draw a couple of conclusions:

1. There is no God.
2. If God exists his power must be limited (he's unable to stop bad things from happening).
3. If God exists and is all-powerful he must not be good (he can do anything but doesn't care enough to stop bad things).
4. God is all-powerful and good, but likes to put us through bad things to make us better people.
5. God is all-powerful and good, but no human is really "good", so we get bad things according to what we deserve.

I'm sure there are more options, but the idea is that what we experience on earth, especially of suffering and evil, can affect how we understand God. It can punch holes in whether or not we think God exists. It involves what we assume about humankind and what humans do/don't deserve.

That's where we're going to start together. As a young American I know I can stand to get a better grip on what I do/don't deserve. My standard of living and quality of life, marketing and the media, convince me every day that I deserve much. It's like the recent news story of the girl who tried to sue her college when she didn't get a job right away after graduation. It's this idea of entitlement. But on the other hand, plenty of us have a hard time feeling like we deserve any of the good we find. Have you ever struggled to let yourself be loved, or feel valuable?

So the question this first week with Job is, what are we really entitled to? Nothing? Everything?
Do we deserve good or bad? What is God obligated to do or not do?

Monday, September 21, 2009

James 5:13-20

Lots of folks think James is kinda random, disconnected. But we figure his major theme was addressing what he was seeing at work in the very early church, and helping Christians do a better job at being the church in Christ's name.

So we've heard about taking a long look at ourselves in the mirror of what God says, adjusting how we look at and judge each other, guarding our powerful tongues, and being mindful of the inner attitudes that shape us. It sounds, looking back, like James is interested in the whole body. Not just one or two people who gather together to follow Jesus, every member. And not just one or two aspects of each person's being, but the whole person, inside-out and in-between. And, oh snap, not just Christian people, but even how they spill over and affect the rest of the earth.

We hear a lot of this same kind of business nowadays when people talk about being holistic. "Mind, body and spirit" and yoga and acupuncture, yadda yadda yadda, right? But, really, apart from the extra meaning we add on to stuff that's "holistic", it's a good idea. It's just about being concerned with the whole, and that sounds an awful lot like much of what Jesus taught. And I think it's what we get through James: health, vitality, and LIFE depend on addressing the whole picture, especially in the Church.

So these last verses in the book talk about something very practical again, something we've hit on throughout the series - prayer. And James talks about prayer especially with regard to healing. Some of us can read this and be skeptical, as he talks about annointing and other methods for healing in the community - does James mean to give us step-by-step instructions that'll work like magic every time? Is he saying that the church will never again have to worry about the common cold, or broken bones, or cancer, so long as we pray just right for healing? Doubt it.

Instead, I think he paints a picture of holistic healing. Right away notice that he talks about more than just the physical, he also mentions confession of sin and salvation. I think it's a different idea of healing than just band-aids and instant cures. A deeper kind of healing. And it's tied to the whole body, how we in the fellowship interact together, and care for one another by God's Spirit living in us.

So what do James' closing words to the Church mean for us now? What kind of healing is there for us today? What does it mean for the fellowship, the body, the gathering of people calling themselves "Christians"?

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Remember, this letter is concerned for the heart of the church. So this week we look at the inner part of us, and how that shapes what we say/do. James hits this by talking about two kinds of wisdom and which one we buy into. The first is earthly wisdom, the kind that focuses on self, on “getting mine”. Nowadays some of us call that street smarts or whatever else – this idea that we gotta watch out for ourselves, ‘cause no one else will, we gotta survive, build our own destiny, etc. Anybody who knows anything knows that.

It’s a cut-throat way of life. Where does it come from? Why is it so common to humankind? To me, this wisdom of the world attitude is most present in people who'd say they've been through the school of "hard knocks." Just listen to little orphan Annie in the video, for instance:


Orphans know about hard knocks. Kids from the street know about learning quick, wising up, and taking care of themselves. But, really, isn't that all of us sometime? Maybe some more than others, but however we grew up or whatever circumstances we're in now, haven't we all taken some knocks? And isn't it easy to think, "it's time I start fending for myself"? Well maybe that’s the first kind of wisdom, the world's wisdom, and James says that when folks buy into it, it’s the root of most of our envy/ambition. And it causes strife in the fellowship when everybody's looking out for number one.

But the other kind is heavenly wisdom, Godly wisdom that puts self last and nurtures those around us. A way of life that trusts and hopes for better, that allows us to be vulnerable to God and each other. Maybe this kind of wisdom says, "however many knocks I've had, I still know God is good and God loves me and I can't be or do my best all on my own"? To James, the second kind of wisdom nurtures our faith, which nurtures our action, which then nurtures true wisdom even more...and so on.

So at any given moment, which brand of wisdom do we buy into? And do we even know it? Do we know what basic assumptions are shaping our thoughts, and then our actions, the lives of those right next to us, and even our faith?

Friday, September 18, 2009

James 3:1-12.

There's a similar scene in at least two movies (A Christmas Story and Dumb & Dumber) where it's wintertime and a character decides to lick a frozen metal pole. Can't you just picture Jeff Daniels' character, "Harry", riding up the chair-lift at the ski slope, looking over at the pole and immediately deciding to lick it? No hesitation, no filter, just *BAM* and he's stuck.

James continues this week with more practical teaching, and nothing's more practical than NOT following that compulsion to lick the ice on the pole. James talks about what's on the line when we don't control our mouths. Just like Harry on the ski-lift, letting loose with our tongues affects our whole selves and those around us. Why? Maybe because the mouth, our words, are sometimes the first and sometimes the easiest way for us to be in action.

Think about it, ya don't have to break a sweat, you don't have to get off the couch, to use your tongue - for good or for evil. So once again as James teaches on having a faith that overflows into action, we see how vital our speech is - it's a primary place for us to act, but it may also be the thing we treat most carelessly.