5/31/2010

2nd Sunday in Pentecost

Luke 7:1-17

The small child places the feather in the stream
watching it float down the rough seas
and the log jams of leaves
imagining the perils at each turn
and the maneuvering of the crew
as they bring the ship around
with each new dip and swirl
in the foot wide seas
and she knows
she knows what can and can’t be done
what is and what is not real
but does not limiter herself to these
she knows instead the power of believing
beyond the realms of the reality
of this world
into a world ruled by love
the love of God, which says
be healed
be whole

out ahead of us

Sunday June 6th, 1 Kings 17: 8 Then the word of the LORD came to him: 9 "Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food." 10 So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. Wherever we go in life, God is already there ahead of us. Wherever we are called in ministry, God is already there ahead of us setting the stage. Sometimes we religious types get all hyped up about what we have done in the name of God. We sometimes get all jazzed about how many came forward for an altar call etc. It is at those times we forget that God has already been there, done that, and is calling us as witnesses and ministers. The next time something wonderful happens in ministry, know that you are just the witness of what God has already done. Your job is to provide the logistical support in the aftermath and thank the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, Mary and Martha and all the hosts of saints from the beginning of time for including you in this gift of the God life.

Where is the key?

Monday June 7th, 1 Kings 17: 13 Elijah said to her, "Don't be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. 14 For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land. We have as a nation learned not to trust, and for seemingly good reasons. When I grew up, my parents and I were going somewhere one day and for some reason that has since slipped from my memory, we decided to lock the house. Try as we might, no one could remember where the key was, or if we even had one. The car keys were never hard to find, they were in the ignition. Even after my parents retired off the farm and moved to town, the house was never locked. That kind of trust is born out of knowing relationships. It is the stuff of small rural communities. It was those same relationships that caused the Lutheran church service in that small town to start late one Sunday. My father was not in church when it was time to start, and being a small town, everyone knew he was in town and therefore would be in church. When it was time for worship to start, most of the people were outside wondering if they should go look for my father before church started. He was not the minister, just an old retired farmer who was always in church. There was a sigh of relief and a shuffling back into church when he came walking down the hill. He had been up at the Catholic Church where he had been for the pancake breakfast and got talking to one of the other retired farmers in town and forgot the time. Somehow, I think God is calling us to try to build those kinds of trusting, and intimately relational communities where we live and within our churches.

Hope in community

Tuesday June 8th, 1 Kings 17: 22 The LORD heard Elijah's cry, and the boy's life returned to him, and he lived. 23 Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, "Look, your son is alive!" 24 Then the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD from your mouth is the truth." At that time and place, a woman who had lost her husband and then lost her son, was without family and without hope. Elijah lived with her, graciously received help from her and in return brought her hope. Elijah brought her the word of God which was hope. Now in this story Elijah returns to her, her son, which brought her not only her son, but hope. Bringing hope to the hopeless is a much needed ministry in our day and age. Graciously receiving what others give and graciously giving to others is part of the process, doing it in the name of and in the calling by God is what completes this gracious circle. What would it take to bring that kind of hope to someone in need in your community?

God comes to us

Wednesday June 9th, Galatians 1: 13 For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. Today, Paul would have been known as a fanatic fundamentalist. He had right on his side, he had the power of the state on his side, he had knowledge of scripture on his side, and he knew how to use it for his own and his state’s self interest. He was ready at a moment’s notice and without further thought to the risk of life and limb (at least someone else’s) to protect the word of God. The only trouble is that back then, and through the ages down to today, the main thing the word of God needs protecting from, are those who wish to protect the word of God from others. We too live at a time when it is not so much a conflict between Christians, Muslims and Jews, but rather between fundamentalists Christians, Muslims and Jews and people of faith who wish only to live their lives in decency and respect for the many ways God comes to us.

Enjoy the process

Thursday June 10th, Galatians 1: 15 But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, Sooner or later in life we all come face to face with grace. It is always there, but there are those times when it will just not hide in the background and we are forced to face grace straight on. Sometimes we get to experience it in our lives and in turn learn to live graceful lives. At other times even though grace stares us full in the face, we find ways of explaining it away and ignoring it. Sooner or later when we get to the pearly gates and realize all those people we looked down on are there too, we realize that it is grace that lets us all in. What we missed in life was the joy that comes from graceful living. The calling is to start living gracefully now and enjoy the process.

Fear not

Friday June 11th, Luke 7: 12 As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. 13 When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, "Don't cry." Fear not, in spite of living in a society that has the means to care for the widow and orphan but not the heart for it, fear not. Fear not to care for the widow and orphan in spite of living in a society that has not the heart to bring an end to war but rather feeds off the money that flows in the process of constantly preparing for it. Fear not, in spite of living in a society that has the means, but not the heart to bring an end to poverty. Fear not, in spite of living in a society that has the means but not the heart to provide medical care for all. Fear not, in spite of living in a society that has not the heart to find out why so many are living in our jails instead of being content with simply building more jails. Fear not, in spite of living in a world that seeks the fast buck over the faithful walk. Fear not, the Lord is with you and has ordained to act on his behalf to help build a world where the least, the lost and the lonely fear not.

God with us

Saturday June 12th, Luke 7: 14 Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, "Young man, I say to you, get up!" 15 The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. 16 They were all filled with awe and praised God. "A great prophet has appeared among us," they said. "God has come to help his people." Jesus didn’t stop abortion or gay marriage, he didn’t privatize education or help build bigger fences at our borders, he didn’t try to stack supreme courts or school boards, he didn’t fight communism or try to shove democracy down someone’s throat at the point of a gun, he simple had compassion and helped someone in need. They saw him as a prophet, we know him as Immanuel, God with us.

5/29/2010

MEMORIAL DAY PRAYER by William Sloane Coffin, Jr.

Gracious God, whose own Son's term of service to humanity was so full that its brevity was no distress, we call to mind on this Memorial Sunday those who will not grow old as we are left to grow old, those whose lives were too brief for us but long enough, perhaps, for thee. Forgive us that they died so young because we were too unimaginative, too imperious, too indifferent, or just too late to think of better ways than warfare to conduct the business of the world. Gratefully, we remember the generosity that prompted them to share the last of their rations, the last pair of dry socks, to share in the course of one hour in the foxhole more than most of us care to share with one another in a lifetime. And we recall the courage that made more than one of them fall on the grenade there was no time to throw back.

Grant, O God, that they may not have died in vain. May we draw new vigor from past tragedy. Buttress our instincts for peace, sorely beleaguered. Save us from justifications invented to make us look noble, grand and righteous and from blanket solutions to messy, detailed problems. Give us the vision to see that those nations that gave the most to their generals and least to their poor were, throughout all history, the first to fall. Most of all, give us the vision to see that the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth, too small for anything but love. Through Jesus Christ our Savior, who became what we are to make us what he is. Amen.

5/27/2010

How Christian is Tea Party Libertarianism?

by Jim Wallis 05-27-2010
 
The insurgent Tea Party and its Libertarian philosophy is a political phenomenon, not a religious one. Like the Democratic and Republican parties it seeks to challenge, it is a secular movement, not a Christian one. As with both major political parties, people who regard themselves as Christians may be involved in, or sympathetic to, the new Tea Party; but that doesn’t make it “Christian.” But like the philosophies and policies of the major political parties, the Tea Party can legitimately be examined on the basis of Christian principles — and it should be.

Since the Tea Party is getting such national attention, our God’s Politics blog is going to begin a dialogue on this question: Just how Christian is the Tea Party Movement — and the Libertarian political philosophy that lies behind it? Let me start the dialogue here. And please join in.

Libertarianism is a political philosophy that holds individual rights as its supreme value and considers government the major obstacle. It tends to be liberal on cultural and moral issues and conservative on fiscal, economic, and foreign policy. This “just leave me alone and don’t spend my money” option is growing quickly in American life, as we have seen in the Tea Party movement. Libertarianism has been an undercurrent in the Republican Party for some time, and has been in the news lately due to the primary election win of Rand Paul as the Republican candidate for a Senate seat in Kentucky. Paul has spoken like a true Libertarian, as evidenced by some of his comments since that election last week.

He cited the Civil Rights Act as an example of government interference with the rights of private business. Paul told an interviewer that he would have tried to change the provision in the 1964 Civil Rights Act that made it illegal for private businesses to discriminate on the basis of race. He answered a specific question about desegregating lunch counters by countering, “Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant?”

A few days later, he spoke about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Referring to the Obama administration’s criticisms of BP, Paul said, “I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business.”

Is such a philosophy Christian? In several major aspects of biblical ethics, I would suggest that Libertarianism falls short.

1. The Libertarian enshrinement of individual choice is not the pre-eminent Christian virtue. Emphasizing individual rights at the expense of others violates the common good, a central Christian teaching and tradition. The Christian answer to the question “Are we our brother’s keeper?” is decidedly “Yes.” Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God and love our neighbor. Loving your neighbor is a better Christian response than telling your neighbor to leave you alone. Both compassion and social justice are fundamental Christian commitments, and while the Christian community is responsible for living out both, government is also held accountable to the requirements of justice and mercy. Both Christians on the Right and the Left have raised questions about Libertarian abandonment of the most vulnerable — whether that means unborn lives or the poor.

Just look at the biblical prophets in their condemnation of injustice to the poor, and how they frequently follow those statements by requiring the king (the government) to act justly (a requirement that applied both to the kings of Israel and to foreign potentates). Jeremiah, speaking of King Josiah, said, “He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well” (Jeremiah 22:16). Amos instructs the courts (the government) to “Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts” (Amos 5:15). The prophets hold kings, rulers, judges, and employers accountable to the demands of justice and mercy.

2. An anti-government ideology just isn’t biblical. In Romans 13, the apostle Paul (not the Kentucky Senate candidate) describes the role and vocation of government; in addition to the church, government also plays a role in God’s plan and purposes. Preserving the social order, punishing evil and rewarding good, and protecting the common good are all prescribed; we are even instructed to pay taxes for those purposes! Sorry, Tea Party. Of course, debating the size and role of government is always a fair and good discussion, and most of us would prefer smart and effective to “big” or “small” government.

Revelation 13 depicts the state as a totalitarian beast — a metaphor for Rome, which was persecuting the Christians. This passage serves as a clear warning about the abuse of governmental power. But a power-hungry government is clearly an aberration and violation of the proper role of government in protecting its citizens and upholding the demands of fairness and justice. To disparage government per se — to see government as the central problem in society — is simply not a biblical position.

3. The Libertarians’ supreme confidence in the market is not consistent with a biblical view of human nature and sin. The exclusive focus on government as the central problem ignores the problems of other social sectors, and in particular, the market. When government regulation is the enemy, the market is set free to pursue its own self-interest without regard for public safety, the common good, and the protection of the environment — which Christians regard as God’s creation. Libertarians seem to believe in the myth of the sinless market and that the self-interest of business owners or corporations will serve the interests of society; and if they don’t, it’s not government’s role to correct it.

But such theorizing ignores the practical issues that the public sector has to solve. Should big oil companies like BP simply be allowed to spew oil into the ocean? And is regulating them really un-American? Do we really want nobody to inspect our meat, make sure our kids’ toys are safe, or police the polluters to keep our air clean? Do we really want owners of restaurants and hotels to be able to decide whom they will or won’t serve, or should liquor store owners also be able to sell alcohol to our kids? Given the reality of sin in all human institutions, doesn’t a political process that provides both accountability and checks and balances make both theological and practical sense? C.S. Lewis once said that we need democracy not because people are essentially good, but because they often are not. Democratic accountability is essential to preventing the market from becoming a beast of corporate totalitarianism – just as it is essential for the government. And God’s priorities should determine ours, not the priorities of the Chamber of Commerce.

4. The Libertarian preference for the strong over the weak is decidedly un-Christian. “Leave me alone to make my own choices and spend my own money” is a political philosophy that puts those who need help at a real disadvantage. And those who need help are central to any Christian evaluation of political philosophy. “As you have done to the least of these,” says Jesus, “You have done to me.” And “Blessed are those who are just left alone” has still not made the list of Beatitudes. To anticipate the Libertarian response, let me just say that private charity is simply not enough to satisfy the demands of either fairness or justice, let alone compassion. When the system is designed to protect the privileges of the already strong and make the weak even more defenseless and vulnerable, something is wrong with the system.

5. Finally, I am just going to say it. There is something wrong with a political movement like the Tea Party which is almost all white. Does that mean every member of the Tea Party is racist? Likely not. But is an undercurrent of white resentment part of the Tea Party ethos, and would there even be a Tea Party if the president of the United States weren’t the first black man to occupy that office? It’s time we had some honest answers to that question. And as far as I can tell, Libertarianism has never been much of a multi-cultural movement. Need I say that racism — overt, implied, or even subtle — is not a Christian virtue.

So that should get us started. Let’s have the dialogue about how Christian the Tea Party Movement and its Libertarian philosophy really are. Jump in!

God's Politics Blog by Jim Wallis

Another movie with Tom Hanks??

Is there a secret message from Michelangelo hidden in the Sistine Chapel?

In 1990, physician Frank Meshberger published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association deciphering Michelangelo's imagery with the stunning recognition that the depiction in God Creating Adam in the central panel on the ceiling was a perfect anatomical illustration of the human brain in cross section. Meshberger speculates that Michelangelo surrounded God with a shroud representing the human brain to suggest that God was endowing Adam not only with life, but also with supreme human intelligence.

Now in another panel The Separation of Light from Darkness, Suk and Tamargo have found more. Leading up the center of God's chest and forming his throat, the researchers have found a precise depiction of the human spinal cord and brain stem.

Is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel a 500 year-old puzzle that is only now beginning to be solved? What was Michelangelo saying by constructing the voice box of God out of the brain stem of man? Is it a sacrilege or homage?

It took Michelangelo four years to complete the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He proceeded from east to west, starting from the entrance of the Chapel to finish above the altar. The last panel he painted depicts God separating light from darkness. This is where the researchers report that Michelangelo hid the human brain stem, eyes and optic nerve of man inside the figure of God directly above the altar.

Full article and photos

5/25/2010

Shorts & Sandals & a blessing of the toys Sunday



This Sunday is Holy Trinity Sunday. God comes to us in many ways. It is also the beginning of summer at church with shorts & Sandals Sunday (I may wear sun glasses to cut the glare off all the white legs). So put on your shorts and a good Lutheran T-shirt if you have one, slip your feet into a pair of flip-flops and bring your summer toys (fishing poles, gardening tools, swim fins, golf clubs etc..) to church for a blessing and a blue dot to remind you that all of life is a gift from God. It also helps you remember to say a prayer and remember that God comes to us in many ways and in many places if you are out slammin salmon on a Sunday. It may even help you catch some salmon... but no promises.

The picture above is of my daughter Kelleigh and her friend Katie when they went out fishing. The picture below is cousin Julie this spring in Seward. 
Read more »

The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth - May 31st.

Luke 1:39-57

Not knowing what to think
Mary ran to the one
also with child
also visited by the Lord
at a time when the world longed so
for the one
who would be
The Messiah
and the one who would
announce
This is the one
and even here
in a womb filled with all the comfort
of life
John Cried
Prepare
and leaped for Joy
at the one who was to come
Leaped for joy
at the life that would come
to the world
through this one
in the womb
of Mary

5/24/2010

The Holy Trinity

John 16:12-15

The Spirit comes silently into our hearts
bringing love
bringing life
and pointing to the one who brought us life
Jesus the Christ
The Living God
In our desires to be the center
and our desires to turn inward
wrapping ourselves up in ever smaller packages
fearing that if we are not the center
there will be no center
in our emptiness
longing to find that to which we can cling
The Spirit comes
and points to the Christ
the one who walked with us
the one who lived with us
the one who was us
and died like us
only to live and bring life
This is the one to whom the Spirit points
simply
quietly
that we may know God’s love for us
and burst forth in new life
new creation

relationship, not dominance

Sunday May 30th Genesis 1: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. In the beginning was nothingness, except the word of God, and thus life began from that word, from that spirit emanating from the God of creation. Even there we hear of the Spirit hovering over the waters of chaos bring newness and life from the nothingness and chaos. The Spirit, the breath of life itself that comes from God as a gift to this creation called, and therefore made good. God started this little experiment called life out of love brought to life with the breath of God. God said “Yes”, and the relationship between God’s love and all that is, all creation, began. Guided each step along the way by the loving, life giving, breath of God. In Buddhists thought, all of life contains a part of all other life. That is a good way to see the work of the Spirit and a calling as to how we are to treat all life. All life around us, including ourselves, holds in its essence, a part of God, we therefore are called to live in relationship with, not dominance over, this wonderful gift from God.

running smooth

Monday May 31st Genesis 1: God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. My dad always taught me that the best and cheapest thing you can do for your car is to regularly change the oil and keep up on the maintenance. It gives the engine long life, eases the wear and tear on all the parts and helps it to keep running smooth. It does not keep it running indefinitely, but it does keep it running well and long. All of creation, including you and I, need that regular maintenance to keep running smooth and to reduce the wear and tear. Remembering the Sabbath day to keep it Holy is one way we can all help keep life running smooth.

Faith

Tuesday June 1st, Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. Justified, made right, put in a right relationship, recreated, born again, all this and more through the work of faith. It is not our faith however that brings this about, but the faith of Christ, the actor, not the acted upon. Through Christ we are a New Creation. Through Christ, God looks upon us once again and cries, “Yes, it is good.” In Christ, we see the goodness of God shinning through. In Christ, we know all the mysteries of Heaven we can know. In Christ, we are given the ability to know we are in Christ. In Christ we have our being.

thank you

Wednesday June 2nd, Romans 5: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. Life does not always go smoothly. There are dips and bumps on the road of life for us all. When you meet someone who possesses that something we call “character,” it is not because the road has gone smooth for them, it is because they have learned to handle the bumps by holding fast to the love of God. They live their life knowing that there are bumps for everyone. Character comes not from smooth sailing, but knowing the presence of God in the beauty of a calm sunset, and knowing that God is always near in the violence of the storm. Lack of character and a façade of callousness the comes from thinking you can go it in this world all alone. A Christian is not any better than anyone else, they just have some half baked idea who to thank, and do so often.

boring

Thursday June 3rd, Romans 5: In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit! A life well lived is one where you can say, “Look how God has been with me through the bumps, dips and ditches, I can’t wait to see what is next.” If you have ever tried to read the Bible you probably know those boring parts of scripture with the long list of names, most of which you cannot pronounce. These sections are the writers way of saying, “look how God has been with all generations through all the bumps, dips and ditches they have been through, just imagine what God has in store for me, yahoo.” When you get to these sections in the Bible, you have permission to skip over all those names and say, “look how God has been faithful for all these generations, surely God will be faithful to me also.” Then close your eyes, hold out your arms in praise, and soak in the love of God and the presence of God poured out upon you. A good “Hallelujah, Praise God” would be in order about now.

She will send us out

Friday June 4th, John 16: "I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when (s)he, the Spirit of truth, comes, (s)he will guide you into all truth. I always thought the Greek word for the Holy Spirit was a feminine noun. When the Spirit comes to us, she will guide us in all truth, not knowledge, not wealth, not power, but truth. And in that truth we are sent into the world to serve. The purpose of the Holy Spirit is not for narcissistic ecstaticism, but rather, as was shown in the book of Acts, a good stiff wind at our backs as we go out into all the world. That wind blowing us out into the world with the message of God’s love and grace is the Spirit and her name is Holy.

New Creation, Yes!!

Saturday June 5th, John 16: He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. As you are drawn into a relationship with someone, you are drawn into the intimate knowledge of their likes and dislikes, feelings and hopes, their dreams and fears as well as all their hidden gifts. The Spirit brings us into an intimate relationship with the God of Creation, shown to us in the work of Jesus the Christ. It is in that relationship that life has meaning. It is the New Creation, Yes!!! It is Good!!! It is you!!!! Now go live it!!!

5/22/2010

Trinity Sunday Opening Litany

 


Pastor: You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have brought forth praise which silences the foe and the avenger and calls us to live as one.

Congregation: When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what are we that you are mindful of us, who are we that you care for us? 

Pastor: You made humanity a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned us with glory and honor. You call us to lovingly care for the works of your hands and lay all that we have at Your feet O Lord.

Congregation: You call us to care for all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, and all that swims the paths of the seas. We will therefore lovingly care for this world you have created for us.
 
The Psalm continues with singing "How Majestic is Your Name" one more time.

5/17/2010

The Golden Calf?

Pentecost

John 14:8-27

We have seen the Lord
not high in the Heavens above
but right here in our midst
living among us
living within us
and within those who do not know
they are loved
We have seen the Lord
in the eyes of a child
the eyes of a foe
and we are not afraid
for we live in the presence of the Lord
surrounded by the Spirit
filled with the peace of Christ
and called to reach out
to let others know of this love
(Peace)
calling toward the peace of Christ
that is within them
God created and said it was good
as the children of God
We see
good
God
in all that
and in all who
surrounds us
living as the children of God
Knowing
we are never alone
(Peace )

Ohhhh! shinny things!!!

Sunday May 23rd, Genesis 11: 1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. 3 They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." Give a kid a new toy and they play with it, give an adult a new toy and they try to take over the world. This story is a repeat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Humanity once again tries to take over the god spot. No longer content with using the building materials God had given them, now they are making their own bricks and using tar to stick them together. I will refrain from making snide comments on how our god complex is still providing a sticky mess in the gulf. Making something new from the tools God has given you is not a bad thing, it has given us many wonderful gifts and tools and wonders. It is why our young men and women are driven to go to school, learn, graduate and hopefully make the world a better place, but we all know that all too often our toys have outstripped our ethics. Here is where the church should step in and bring humanity into the conversation about how our toys should help us work for the kingdom, not against it. All we have to do is remember Wall Street, “K” Street, Greece, and spill, baby, spill and note how silent the church has been. It is sad really, men and women of good will, and the children of God in the pews have largely been silenced by the call for personal greed over public need. Keep your eye on the king….. Oh look at that shinny new thing… dom.

you talk funny

Monday May 24th, Genesis 11: 5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." 8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth. Sitting around the campfire, the child asks, “why do some people talk so we can’t understand them?” The question prompts this story. On the one hand it is just a story, on the other hand it is a glimpse into the heart of humanity. Humanity wasn’t ready to get together and try to solve the world’s problems. Humanity then as now was, as a child, too focused inward on itself. The melt downs and bubbling ups only go to show that things have changed little. Rather than looking inward for our personal gain, Pentecost sends us out. It reverses Babel. Now if only our maturity would catch up.

attempts to harness the wind

Tuesday May 25th, Acts 2: When the Feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force—no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Try as we might, there is no way to control or predict the work of the spirit. It is as the wind. This is the beginning of the great reversal of Babel, and once again, humanity is not in control, God is. Where is the spirit blowing in your community, nation, workplace or life? What limits do we foolishly try to place on the wind? Who do we foolishly try to cast as being outside the community of faith? Who do we foolishly try to cast as being inside the community of faith? How do we try to harness the wind as our personal lord and savior? All too often the church has not only participated in, but promoted attempts at harnessing the wind instead of celebrating it. As a culture we are still reeling from that dime store novel theology of the left behind series with its vision of who is out and who is in. When people in conversation say, “I believe in God and all that but………” The “but” of their objections to the church is usually the churches attempts to harness the wind. The “I believe in God and all that” part of the conversation is the work of the spirit.

fan the flames not douse them with dogma

Wednesday May 26th, Acts 2: This is what the prophet Joel announced would happen: "In the Last Days," God says, "I will pour out my Spirit on every kind of people: Your sons will prophesy, also your daughters; Your young men will see visions, your old men dream dreams. In the last days the Spirit would not be confined to the usual but will explode in the unusual. It is usually the old who have visions and the young who have dreams and the spirit brings the great reversal. It is usually the ones in the church who have the vision of what the church should be and the young outside the walls who dream of what the church could be. God will move wherever and through whomever God wishes. It has always been that way and any attempts by humanity to wrest that control from God have failed starting with that tree in the garden up to today. Most of human history has been efforts to subtly control and stifle the Spirit for personal gain. It never worked, but we felt in charge trying. God however spends all of human history getting us to build bridges outward where we often feel the spirit is not, only to find when we do get there that the spirit has been waiting a long time and has set a few fires of her own. The first step is to look beyond ourselves and see God. The second step is to fan the flames not douse them with dogma.

comfort and call

Thursday May 27th, John 14: 8 Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." 9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. We can speculate all we want about the nature of God, what it is for us to know of God is what we have seen in Jesus’ message, Jesus’ teachings, Jesus’ grace and God’s act of salvation for all creation through that grace. As humanity matures, we see more and more the wonder more and more at the grace of God in the actions of Jesus. It is a comfort for many and a call to all.

magic vending machine

Friday May 28th, John 14: 12"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. I have often heard this message as the magic vending machine in the sky. We ask, that is we ask properly and while attending the right church and believing the right doctrine and voting the right way, and bingo, we get what we want from Jesus. Put in your prayers, pull the lever and Jesus does your bidding. This theology is a shell game however and the only thing that works is the illusion that you are in control and the grace of a loving God who doesn’t zap you for playing those stupid games once again. It is not as if the scripture isn’t full of examples of this type of narcissistic gamblers fallacy. The point of prayer is not so much asking for what we want, but asking from the deep need within for a healthy relationship with God. What we find when we seek relationship is that what we ask for is God’s plan all along.

who do you thank?

Saturday May 29th, John 14: "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me. The difference between these two statements is that those who love Jesus will keep his word and those who do not love Jesus will not keep his words. We often take the leap and assume that the second group, those who do not love Jesus, are not loved by God and that God does not dwell in them which it does not say. That is our hang-up for which we need forgiveness. The difference is not whether “they” are loved or whether God dwells within them, the difference is whether “they” are aware of it or not. Those who do not love God may be missing out in the joy and comfort of knowing God is with them, but they are not missing out on God being with them. That is just the rest of us trying to be judgmental. A Christian is no better than anyone else, they just have some half baked idea who to thank.

Acts 21: opening litany for Pentecost

The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome  (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs-we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?"

Some, however, made fun of them and said, "They have had too much wine."
Peter Addresses the Crowd

Pastor:  Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: "Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say.  These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

Congregation: " 'In the last days, God says, there will be a great reversal and I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Our sons and daughters will prophesy, our young will see visions and the elderly among us will dream dreams.

Pastor:  Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, Says the Lord, and they will prophesy.

Congregation: The Lord will show us wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.  The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord and yet:

All:  And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'

5/11/2010

May 14th, 2010 - St. Matthias, Apostle

Luke 6:12-16

Chosen
among the many
twelve who would be there in a special way
twelve
who would help to lead the world
from nowhere
from powerlessness
help to lead the world
with it’s great armies
and nations
and people
who live separate lives
lives
in pain
lives
in need
of the one who chose twelve
just twelve
with no particular greatness
except
being chosen by Christ
who brought salvation
by choosing
you and me!

May 13th, 2010 - The Ascension

Luke 24:44-53

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth
And the earth was formless and void
And chaos ruled
And God created
And declared
It is Good
It is good this creation of earth
It is good this creation of life
It is even good
This earthling from the earth
Made in the image of God
It is good
And sometimes not all good
Tempted to turn inward
Tempted to eat of the tree
Tempted to be god
With a little "g"
Then one came
Of lowly birth and high calling
Called to fulfill what was called into being as Good
Bringing forgiveness
For inward turning little “g’s”
To turn them outward once again
From Jerusalem
To all the nations of this earth
Called Good
To bring the news of new beginnings
Freedom from the created chaos
Of the ever inward turning earthling
Called to go into all of creation
Called Good
And bring the news of new beginnings
Freedom from
Inward turnings
Freedom for
Outward yearnings
And as he ascended from Bethany below
To the heavens all around
He told them to Go
To every nook and cranny
Every nation and state
Every tribe and village
And bring the forgiving news of Goodness
As they once again turned inward
To small “g”
And stayed in the temple day and night
Praising god
but some learned
some heard
some turned from the inside "g"
to the big world called "G"ood
Go make disciples of all nations
and low I am with you always
to the ends of creation called "G"ood
where you will find others
created in the image of..
and where you will find..
"God"

5/10/2010

7th Sunday of Easter

John 17:20-26

Call us dear Lord
that we may all be one
One in love
One in your name
One in prayer
Pray for us Lord
that we may all be you children
Unique, but one
Whole and part of the whole
Individual persons
each loved
and gathered around your table
One family
Divided through our own efforts
but united in you
Fill us with the love of God
that we
in spite of ourselves
may love
That we
in spite of ourselves
may gather
That we
in spite of ourselves
may pray
That we
in spite of ourselves
and because of your love
may pray
---- gather
--------worship
------------ together
as one
in You
Amen

doing the will of God

Sunday May 16th, Acts 16: 16-18 One day, on our way to the place of prayer, a slave girl ran into us. She was a psychic and, with her fortunetelling, made a lot of money for the people who owned her. She started following Paul around, calling everyone's attention to us by yelling out, "These men are working for the Most High God. They're laying out the road of salvation for you!" She did this for a number of days until Paul, finally fed up with her, turned and commanded the spirit that possessed her, "Out! In the name of Jesus Christ, get out of her!" And it was gone, just like that. Let me see, was she baptized before she started yelling that these men worked for the Most High God? Was she born again first? Did she become a member first? Was she confirmed first? Is this one of the gifts of the spirit? All she was, was someone in need and someone through whom the spirit worked its wonders. Through the love of Christ, Paul responded through the love of Christ and she was set free, much to the irritation of those who thought they could own her. That is our calling also. To set free those who are bound, by whatever it is that binds them. One could assume that since before she was set free she was doing the will of God, after she was set free, even though we do not hear from her again, she was also doing the will of God. How many people in your lives, without doing some formal training, are doing the will of God and speaking the word of God in your heart? Sometimes we get too busy playing church to be the church.

no way to stop us

Monday May 17th, Acts 16: 29-31 The jailer got a torch and ran inside. Badly shaken, he collapsed in front of Paul and Silas. He led them out of the jail and asked, "Sirs, what do I have to do to be saved, to really live?" They said, "Put your entire trust in the Master Jesus. Then you'll live as you were meant to live—and everyone in your house included!" The jailer didn’t take a membership class, or confirmation class, his children weren’t baptized or instructed in the meanings of the words of institution or the office of the keys. He knew little of church history. All he was, was some poor guy whose life, as he had known it, had come to an end, and a new life had started. He could fall on his sword as was called for by the powers that be, or he could “really live.” He chose the latter. Often it is not until we reach bottom that we can see up. It is not until we need God that we see God who has been with us all along. The Jailers only qualification for membership in the church was that he had nowhere else to go. He had reached the point where it was a choice between life and death, and he chose life. Would that we had more in our congregation like that!!!! There would be no way to stop us.

piss poor preache

Tuesday May 18th, Acts 16: 32-34 They went on to spell out in detail the story of the Master—the entire family got in on this part. They never did get to bed that night. The jailer made them feel at home, dressed their wounds, and then—he couldn't wait till morning!—was baptized, he and everyone in his family. There in his home, he had food set out for a festive meal. It was a night to remember: He and his entire family had put their trust in God; everyone in the house was in on the celebration. Grace given, Grace received. This was God’s view of the of the creation God called good brought to fruition in this home, this family. Sometimes we work so hard in the presentation of the message that we forget that the power is in the message itself. When everyone comes once a week to hear the pastor give the message, no matter how good or bad the message is, it is never as good as one person in a time of need hearing it from one person who happens to be there for them. Pastors should spend more time training others to respond to those moments than on eloquently telling the story again themselves. Think of it, a congregation of pastors who once a week gather around to celebrate with a teacher who is a piss poor preacher, and a congregation that grows. This is not what I was taught in Seminary.

Kingdom has come

Wednesday May 19th, Revelation 22: 14 "Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. 15 Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. We hear statements like this and begin to feel at home. Finally God gets it and those dogs and immoral idolaters are, in the end, outside the Holy City, the Kingdom of God on earth. We can breathe a sigh of relief, until we realized that there are no closed gates in the city. Perhaps these sinister folks are out there waiting for those inside the city to come and get them and tell them the story until, from their bottom in life, or after life, they too can look up see God and come into the Holy city. I believe that evangelism goes on in heaven until the last weary soul is brought into the Holy City rejoicing. It is at that point that all the Holy city rejoicing with them and heaven itself if complete. The Kingdom has come as we confess each Sunday.

Free Gift

Thursday May 20th, Revelation 22: 17 The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life. All those dogs and sleazebags outside the Holy City, come, take the Free Gift of the water of life. All those who look down upon the dogs and sleazebags and because of that looking down on others find yourselves outside the Holy City, come, take the Free Gift of the water of life. All you church folk who are welcoming to all, but, first they must renounce a part of who they are or have an experience or understand the sacraments or, or, or……… come, take the Free Gift of the water of life. All you religious folks, who call God by some other name like Jehovah, or Allah, or Krishna, or YHWH, come, take the Free Gift of the water of life and welcome to the Kingdom, the City of God. Are you beginning to get the picture!?!

life alive

Friday May 21st, John 17: 20-23 The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind— Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, So they might be one heart and mind with us. We often confuse being of one heart and mind with being in agreement. If everyone agreed in Heaven then eternity would be a mighty long long boring time. One could argue that this kind of heaven could itself be hell. Disagreeing is different than dissing. Being one in heart and mind is like being in love, wanting the best for the other even if you can’t agree where to go out to eat on one particular evening or which candidate to vote for. It is caring for one another in spite of our differences. It is what makes life alive and love real.

oneness

Saturday May 22nd, John 17:20-23 The same glory you gave me, I gave them, So they'll be as unified and together as we are— I in them and you in me. Then they'll be mature in this oneness, And give the godless world evidence That you've sent me and loved them In the same way you've loved me. The children of God will be mature in oneness. I think that would mean that until we get that oneness thing down, we are acting rather immature. War is not oneness. Vast economic discrepancies are not oneness. Putting up fences is not oneness. Haves and have not’s is not oneness. Corporations as persons are not oneness. Oneness is more than saying we are brothers and sisters in Christ, it is acting upon the fact that we are brothers and sisters in Christ.

Sit down America, we've got it now!!

Great look at Corporations as citizens
Watch Video

5/09/2010

Mr. Rogers is Evil?

An interesting study of grace vs. works.  Was Mr. Rogers evil as fox said?  Check out the video, "Mr. Rogers is an Evil Man."

5/06/2010

Mothers In Arms

New York Times, May 10, 1992
By Stephanie Coontz

Criticism of the corruption of Mothers Day has become as much a cliché as the holiday itself. Most people believe that Mother's Day started out as a private celebration of women's family roles and relations. We took Mom breakfast in bed to thank her for all the meals she made us. We picked her a bouquet of flowers to symbolize her personal, unpaid services. We tried to fix in our memory those precious moments of her knitting sweaters or sitting at our bedside, all the while focusing on her devotion to her family and ignoring her broader social ties, interests and political concerns.

Today, many complain, the personal element in this celebration has been lost. Mother's Day is just another occasion to make money. It is the busiest day of the year for restaurants, and the week that precedes it is the single-best for florists. The real meaning of Mother's Day is gone.

Such lamentation about the holiday's degradation reflect a misunderstanding of its history. It was the education of Mother's Day to sentimentalism and private family relations that made it so vulnerable to commercial exploitation.

The 19th century forerunners of our modern holiday were called mothers' days, not Mother's Day. The plural is significant: They celebrated the extension of women's moral concerns beyond the home. They commemorated mothers' civic roles and services to the nation, not their private roles and personal services to the family. The women who organized the first mothers' days believed motherhood was a political force that should be mobilized on behalf of the entire community, not merely an expression of a fundamental instinct that led them to lavish all their time and attention on their children.

The earliest call for a mothers' day came from Anna Reeves Jarvis, a community activist, who in 1858 organized Mothers' Work Days in West Virginia to improve sanitation in Appalachian communities. During the Civil War, the women she mobilized cared for the wounded on both sides and, after the war's end, arranged meetings to persuade the men to lay aside their enmities.

The holiday's other precursor began in Boston in 1872, when Julia Ward Howe, author of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," proposed an annual Mothers' Day for Peace. This was celebrated on June 2 in most Northeastern cities for the next 30 years.

The message that Mrs. Howe's mothers sent to the Government was a far cry from today's syrupy platitudes: "Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage... Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

The connection of motherhood to movements for peace and social justice made particular sense in the 19th century. Despite its repressiveness, the Victorian image of motherhood gave women moral responsibility beyond the household, a duty that for many translated easily into social activism. Women played a leading role in anti-slavery agitation, temperance movements, consumer protection drives and the construction of America's social welfare system. They believed their role as mothers made them especially suited for political and social activities.

After the turn of the century, however, women's expanding political and economic activities beyond the home collided with the growth of a consumer economy. While women won important reforms in the public sphere, their maternal and moral responsibilities were privatized and linked to their role as "purchasing agent" for the family. Sentimentalization of motherhood seemed to go hand in hand with its trivialization.

This was the context in which Anna Jarvis's daughter, also named Anna Jarvis, began a letter-writing campaign to honor her own mother by getting a special day set aside for all mothers. Politicians and businessmen who had opposed l9th century women's reforms embraced an individualistic Mother's Day that could be, as Florists' Review, the industry's trade magazine, put it, "exploited."

The adoption of Mother's Day by Congress on May 8, 1914, represented a reversal of everything the 19th century mothers' days had stood for. Speeches proclaiming the occasion repudiated women's social and political roles, except to emphasize the importance of mothers in teaching their children to obey the state. One antisuffrage leader inverted the original intent of mothers' day entirely when she asked rhetorically: If a woman becomes "a mother to the Municipality, who is going to mother us?"

Its bond with social reform snapped, Mother's Day drifted into the orbit of the marketing industry. Outraged when florist "profiteers" began selling carnations for $1, the younger Anna Jarvis set about combating the commercialization of the day she had worked so hard to establish. Within a few years; however, Florists' Review was able to announce that "Miss Jarvis was completely squelched." For her part, Anna Jarvis became more and more obsessed with exposing those who would undermine Mother's Day with their greed." She was eventually committed to a sanitarium, where she died in 1948, just before the real takeoff of Mother's Day commercialization in the 1950's.

Women in the 1990's have even more reason than Anna Jarvis to resent those who celebrate Mother's Day by offering store-bought sentiments as a substitute for supporting the basic needs of mother's and children. The Government devotes a smaller proportion of its resources to financing children's education than any other major democracy. A majority of American mothers now work for pay, but they still face a second shift at home and lack adequate parental leave policies or childcare facilities. Poor American mothers, have lower incomes relative to the rest of the population, less assistance with job placement and childcare and less medical coverage than in any other advanced industrial nation.

But this disrespect for mothers will not be solved by forgoing the Mother's Day all-you-can-eat buffets and retreating even further into the nuclear family. Such a move would only revive the most stultifying, repressive aspects of 19th century domesticity while jettisoning the elements that made it bearable: motherhood's connection to larger social and political ideals of peace and justice.

Mother's Day belongs neither in the shopping mall nor the kitchen, but in the streets and community action groups where it originated.

Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870

by Julia Ward Howe

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
"From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.
"Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

5/05/2010

A Christian Response to Arizona's Government-Sponsored Evil by Lisa Sharon Harper

Certain moments in our nation's history have consistently opened the door for the least civil voices to enact evil through civil policy: think the institution of race-based U.S. slavery, the Indian removals, Jim Crow laws, legalized segregation, the federal protection of lynching mobs, and, don't forget, the Japanese internment camps, among others. In each case, hard economic times led otherwise sane people to unleash insane injustice under the guise of public policy.

There's something about hard-knock times that consistently opens civil minds to uncivilized acts. When those minds hold the power of the policy pen, then personal malice becomes government-sponsored acts of terror against its own citizens.

This time it is the good, economically recessed, fear-ravaged people of Arizona who have elevated bottom-dwellers to the place of law-makers. They actually handed a registered hate group, FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform), the pen and asked them to help write Arizona's anti-immigrant law, SB1070, which requires police officers to ask for "papers" from anyone they "suspect" might be an illegal immigrant. If they cannot prove their legal residence, they will be thrown in jail. This Machiavellian law places the U.S. in company with Apartheid South Africa, Nazi Germany, and the Antebellum South, each of which demanded the presentation of "papers" demonstrating the individual from the minority group was allowed to be in certain areas of town.

On April 23, Governor Jan Brewer took her policy-making pen and placed her government-issued stamp of approval on SB1070, signing it into law.

The first victim fell before the bill was signed. The victim, Abdon, a Latino trucker, was pulled over and asked for his "papers." When he didn't have his birth certificate on his person, he was jailed. His wife was called and told to bring his birth certificate to the jail to arrange his release. Abdon is a United States citizen born in Fresno, California.

The second victim I know of was Ben Lowe, the 20-something Democrat currently running for Congress in the 6th District of Illinois. On April 24, Ben (a half-white, half-Chinese-American Evangelical Christian) was one of four passengers in his friend's car when they were stopped by police in Cicero, IL.

In a phone interview today Ben explained that after all four passengers were taken out of the car, lined up, and patted down, the officers searched the car. All of the other three passengers were white/Caucasian, so no one suspected racial profiling.

"Then, after we were searched," Lowe explained, "one of the officers came up to our driver and explained we were pulled over on 'probable cause' because we were 'light-skinned', 'could have been Hispanic,' and they have trouble with Hispanics driving into the city on this road with drugs in their car."

Ironically, a major pillar of Lowe's congressional platform is the need to introduce and pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

There are times in scripture and history when God looks at unjust laws and calls people of faith to stare them down and break them. Think Abram and Sarah posing as brother and sister upon entering Egypt to get around a dirty law established by Pharaoh. Think Moses defying Pharaoh's legal hold on his Jewish kinfolk. Think Jesus defying religious laws to touch the bleeding woman and the leper and to heal on the Sabbath. Think Paul who called the church to cross ethnic and racial boundaries, flying in the face of religious laws of his day.

Then think of the abolitionists and conductors on the underground railroad who said "no" to the complete crush of oppression in their day. Think of Rosa Parks who starred in the face of segregation and said "no" in her day. Think of César Chávez who mounted a 36-day spiritual fast against environmental and labor injustice, saying "no" in his day.

This is our day.

It is time to march. It is time to make some serious noise. We must speak up and out and make it known that we will not lie down. We will not comply with injustice. We will not let hate and fear govern our nation. No! We have come too far for that! Too many people have bled and died and paid severe costs for us to trample on their sacrifices with unjust laws like SB1070.

Without federal standards, states are free to enact their own unjust immigration policies. Today, pundits say Congress is backing away from its commitment to introduce and pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform in this session.

As a person of faith, I call on our congress to have faith! Do what God calls all of us to do when faced with government sponsored evil. Look injustice in the eye and say "no." Pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform now.

5/03/2010

Plutocracy and Democracy don't mix, Bill Moyers final word

BILL MOYERS: You've no doubt figured out my bias by now. I've hardly kept it a secret. In this regard, I take my cue from the late Edward R. Murrow, the Moses of broadcast news.

Ed Murrow told his generation of journalists bias is okay as long as you don't try to hide it. So here, one more time, is mine: plutocracy and democracy don't mix. Plutocracy, the rule of the rich, political power controlled by the wealthy.

Plutocracy is not an American word but it's become an American phenomenon. Back in the fall of 2005, the Wall Street giant Citigroup even coined a variation on it, plutonomy, an economic system where the privileged few make sure the rich get richer with government on their side. By the next spring, Citigroup decided the time had come to publicly "bang the drum on plutonomy."

And bang they did, with an "equity strategy" for their investors, entitled, "Revisiting Plutonomy: The Rich Getting Richer." Here are some excerpts:

"Asset booms, a rising profit share and favorable treatment by market-friendly governments have allowed the rich to prosper...[and] take an increasing share of income and wealth over the last 20 years..."

"...the top 10%, particularly the top 1% of the US-- the plutonomists in our parlance-- have benefited disproportionately from the recent productivity surge in the US...[and] from globalization and the productivity boom, at the relative expense of labor."

"...[and they] are likely to get even wealthier in the coming years. [Because] the dynamics of plutonomy are still intact."

And so they were, before the great collapse of 2008. And so they are, today, after the fall. While millions of people have lost their jobs, their homes, and their savings, the plutonomists are doing just fine. In some cases, even better, thanks to our bailout of the big banks which meant record profits and record bonuses for Wall Street.

Now why is this? Because over the past 30 years the plutocrats, or plutonomists — choose your poison — have used their vastly increased wealth to capture the flag and assure the government does their bidding. Remember that Citigroup reference to "market-friendly governments" on their side? It hasn't mattered which party has been in power — government has done Wall Street's bidding.

Don't blame the lobbyists, by the way; they are simply the mules of politics, delivering the drug of choice to a political class addicted to cash — what polite circles call "campaign contributions" and Tony Soprano would call "protection."

This marriage of money and politics has produced an America of gross inequality at the top and low social mobility at the bottom, with little but anxiety and dread in between, as middle class Americans feel the ground falling out from under their feet. According to a study from the Pew Research Center last month, nine out of ten Americans give our national economy a negative rating. Eight out of ten report difficulty finding jobs in their communities, and seven out of ten say they experienced job-related or financial problems over the past year.

So it is that like those populists of that earlier era, millions of Americans have awakened to a sobering reality: they live in a plutocracy, where they are disposable. Then, the remedy was a popular insurgency that ignited the spark of democracy.

Now we have come to another parting of the ways, and once again the fate and character of our country are up for grabs.

So along with Jim Hightower and Iowa's concerned citizens, and many of you, I am biased: democracy only works when we claim it as our own.

Mr. Moyers you'll be sorely missed.

Video of the statement.

Arizona — the wrong answer

I am saddened today at the prospect of a young Hispanic immigrant in Arizona going to the grocery store and forgetting to bring her passport and immigration documents with her. I cannot be dispassionate about the fact that the very act of her being in the grocery store will soon be a crime in the state she lives in. Or that should a policeman hear her accent and form a “reasonable suspicion” that she is an illegal immigrant, she can – and will – be taken into custody until someone sorts it out, while her children are at home waiting for their dinner.

Equally disturbing is what will happen in the mind of the policeman. The police talk today about how they do not wish to, and will not, engage in racial profiling. Yet faced with the option of using common sense and compassion, or harassing a person who has done nothing wrong, a particularly sinister aspect of Arizona's new immigration law will be hanging over his head. He can be personally sued, by ANYONE, for failing to enforce this inhumane new act.

I recognize that Arizona has become a widening entry point for illegal immigration from the South. The wave has brought with it rising violence and drug smuggling.

But a solution that degrades innocent people, or that makes anyone with broken English a suspect, is not a solution. A solution that fails to distinguish between a young child coming over the border in search of his mother and a drug smuggler is not a solution.

I am not speaking from an ivory tower. I lived in the South Africa that has now thankfully faded into history, where a black man or woman could be grabbed off the street and thrown in jail for not having his or her documents on their person.

How far can this go? We lived it -- police waking a man up in the middle of the night and hauling him off to jail for not having his documents on his person while he slept. The fact that they were in his nightstand near the bed was not good enough.

Of course if you suggested such a possibility today to an Arizona policeman he would be adamant that he would never do such a thing. And I would believe him. Arizona is a long way from apartheid South Africa.

The problem is, under the new law, the one or two who WOULD do it are legitimized. All they have to say is that they believed that illegal immigrants were being harbored in the house. They would be protected and sanctioned by this law.

Abominations such as Apartheid do not start with an entire population suddenly becoming inhumane. They start here. They start with generalizing unwanted characteristics across an entire segment of a population. They start with trying to solve a problem by asserting superior force over a population. They start with stripping people of rights and dignity – such as the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty – that you yourself enjoy. Not because it is right, but because you can. And because somehow, you think this is going to solve a problem.

Full Article

6th Sunday of Easter

John 14:23-29

She ran in the door smiling
covered with mud
in little splotches here and there
with a smile of love
plastered amid the streaks of dirt
just smiling
and that was enough
it said love
with no agendas
---- strings
-------- ifs
it just said love
and that was enough for the whole world
in that moment
just love
Christ’s Spirit is here
to guide us
---- love
to gently nudge this way and that
---- love
so that as we stand before God
amid our smudged and streaked hands
and faces
the God and Creator of all
sees only the smile
---- love
of Christ

Begin with the End in Mind

Sunday May 9th, Revelation 22: 1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. In the beginning (Gen. 2) we have the river flowing from Eden and watering the tree of life, in the end, (Rev. 22) we have the river of life flowing from the throne of God and down the middle of the Holy City and nurturing all of humanity. These are bookend visions of God providing life. In the middle is the story of humanity nurturing that life in line with the vision God has given us. In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey, Habit 2 is "Begin with the End in Mind." Or, in other words, determine where you want to end up in the future, and plan the present in light of those goals. God’s part of the vision is the majestic future of the Holy City come down to earth, ours is often a little less majestic. God’s part of the vision gives us a glimpse into what our life should be like on this side of heaven. While we spend so much of our time on unimportant and often destructive tasks, God calls us to a higher vision. God calls us to the vision of the river of life flowing through our lives and through our world nurturing all of humanity. In Israel there are two seas. One has lots of fish in it, lush crops grow along its shoreline and children play for hours, the other has no fish, no crops, and except for a resort or two, there is not much playing. One is the Sea of Galilee and the other is the Dead Sea. The difference is that water flows into the Sea of Galilee and the water flows out to water the crops and feed the people. In the Dead Sea, the water only flows in. For God’s sake, let us return to the vision of the river of life, where the life giving water flows through our lives and out into the world. For when we horde it to ourselves, we die within. The Love of God, is truly seen only as love when shared.

Start on the inside and work out.

Monday May 10th, Revelation 22: On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. God’s vision for this place called earth is one of wholeness and healing. In the beginning was one tree of life, now there are trees for every tribe and nation and the leaves are for the healing of the nations. One could also conclude that they would be for the healing between the nations. From what do we need healing? One of the first tasks in any healing process is diagnosis. Perhaps what the church should first be about is diagnosis and healing. All too often we find the big business of the church hung up on justification and self preservation. We as the people of God are called into a conversation as to what would be the most healing for all of humanity, especially the least, lost and lonely. We often get caught up in the conversation about what would be best for our church, our community, or our nation and forget God’s larger vision. We may not be able to invoke peace in the Middle East, but we can start with how we talk to, and deal with one another. Love God and Love others sums up all of scripture. Start on the inside and work out.

where did the darkness go?

Tuesday May 11th, Revelation 22: The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. Darkness can be a time of chaos in our lives and is often is scripture a symbol of chaos. In the vision of God’s kingdom come down to earth, there is no night, no chaos. There is only wholeness, health, and healing for those in need which includes all of us. It’s an idyllic vision I know, and not a place of serenity we can ever hope to obtain in our time and in our part of the kingdom. We can however get a whole lot closer than we are now, and indeed are called to move in that direction. How we do that starts in our hearts, knowing God loves us, and moves outward knowing God loves others and calls us to do the same. It helps if you are standing in the light of Christ in the first place.

If you have an itch, Scratch it

Wednesday May 12th, Acts 16: 9-10 That night Paul had a dream: A Macedonian stood on the far shore and called across the sea, "Come over to Macedonia and help us!" The dream gave Paul his map. We went to work at once getting things ready to cross over to Macedonia. All the pieces had come together. We knew now for sure that God had called us to preach the good news to the Europeans. Dreams can lead us in many different ways, some good and some not so good. The difference often comes about by what it is we steep our life in. When we live our lives in prayer, we live our lives steeped in the God and our lives take on the flavors of that God life. For Paul, God spoke to him and moved the gospel once again beyond a pre-conceived boundary. Paul was already operating beyond the boundary of the church by ministering to the Gentiles. God had taken him north out of Israel, across present day Lebanon, Syria and up into Turkey and then west to the shore of the Aegean Sea. From across the Aegean, on the shores of present day Greece God moved the Good News from the Mid-East to the southern shores of Europe. God’s boundaries are always far beyond what we consider acceptable, safe or comfortable. When and if we get there, we find that God is already there waiting for us to show up and get to work. What boundaries does your church need to cross today in order to go where God is waiting for you? What safe boundaries do you need to cross only to find God waiting for you? If you feel the itch to get moving, perhaps it is time to scratch it.

Listen, listen God is Calling

Thursday May 13th, Acts 16: 13-14 On the Sabbath, we left the city and went down along the river where we had heard there was to be a prayer meeting. We took our place with the women who had gathered there and talked with them. One woman, Lydia, was from Thyatira and a dealer in expensive textiles, known to be a God-fearing woman. As she listened with intensity to what was being said, the Master gave her a trusting heart—and she believed! When Paul gets way beyond those boundaries of comfort, what does he find but a community and leaders already waiting for him and for the word. Not only had God prepared Lydia for learning a new thing, God had also prepared Paul for learning a new thing about the kingdom of God. The next time you feel you are being brave and stepping out with the Gospel, picture in your mind a young child taking their first steps. It is exciting and scary for the one taking the steps, but there is always someone there calling and encouraging them in love. So it is with God in this world. Listen, listen God is calling, through the Word inviting, offering forgiveness, comfort and joy. Jesus gave his mandate; share the good news that he came to save us and set us free. Let none be forgotten throughout the world in the triune name of God go and baptize. Help us to be faithful, standing steadfast, walking in your precepts, led by your Word. Listen, listen God is calling, through the Word inviting, offering forgiveness, comfort and joy. (Listen God is Calling, a Tanzanian traditional hymn translated by Howard Olson, number 712 in “With One Voice”)

If not,.... God still loves

Friday May 14th, John 14: 23 Jesus replied: If anyone loves me, they will obey me. Then my Father will love them, and we will come to them and live in them. 24 But anyone who doesn't love me, won't obey me. What they have heard me say doesn't really come from me, but from the Father who sent me. What I find interesting about this passage is that the ones who love and obey God, God will come and live in them. The word translated as “obey” also has the meaning “hold fast.” For those who don’t love God, the result is that they won’t, not just don’t, but won’t obey God. It doesn’t say anything about God not continually coming to them and working with them to learn to love God. It doesn’t say anything about God not loving them. It also doesn’t say anything about the children of God not loving them. The only difference is that in the mean time, they don’t get the joy of knowing God is already with them. When they hear the old Brenda Lee song, “All Alone Am I” it pulls on their heart strings, they know that feeling of aloneness. As Buechner puts it, “A Christian isn’t any better than anyone else, they just have some half baked idea who to thank. Life’s short, live in the knowledge of God’s love, live thankfully, and live knowing who to thank.

Peace be with you

Saturday May 15th, John 14: 25 I have told you these things while I am still with you. 26 But the Holy Spirit will come and help] you, because the Father will send the Spirit to take my place. The Spirit will teach you everything and will remind you of what I said while I was with you. 27 I give you peace, the kind of peace that only I can give. It isn't like the peace that this world can give. When I was young and lived at home, my father was an idiot. When I got out on my own and grew in years, it is amazing how much smarter my father got. Many have expressed the opinion that if Jesus were here today; and then they usually paint some rosy picture of how they would be following him around and listening at his feet. I think we would all just join together and try to kill him again. The Spirit leads us not into the knowledge of what Jesus would do, but rather into the peace of knowing Christ is with us, and then calls us to action, living out that knowledge. It is not a peace for us alone, but for all of creation. It is living, knowing that Christ is not only in us, but also in them, and acting accordingly.

  • Facebook me