Tea Party Libertarianism and Christian Ethics

by Dr. David P Gushee

The rise of the "tea party" contingent on the Republican Right signals a resurgence and intensification of libertarian strands in American political ideology in a time of great economic stress and political division. This libertarianism stands in sharp contrast with most recognizable Christian traditions of social thought. The contrast deserves unpacking.

I understand today's surging libertarianism as an early species of the ideology of political liberalism. Liberalism, which emerged in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, begins its approach to politics with the freedom and sovereignty of the (property-owning) individual as its fundamental starting point. The individual exists prior to the community, and enters as an equal into community with other individuals in order to protect his life and secure his property. He (gender-exclusive term intentional, in light of the history) does this by making a "social contract" with others in which each gives up a small measure of his freedom in order to secure heightened personal and economic security. The state is the product of that contract and serves essentially as a night watchman which allows individuals maximum freedom to pursue their goals as long as they do not harm others. On this theory the state pursues no real vision of the common good but instead protects individual liberties to pursue life's goods as each person desires.

But political liberalism evolved throughout all of the western democracies in the 19th and 20th centuries toward an approach that recognized a growing range of government responsibilities and at least a partial vision of a common good. This evolution was triggered primarily by the excesses of unfettered industrial capitalism, whose brutalities in the name of the liberties of free enterprise sparked moral outrage everywhere they appeared. Beginning in the late 19th century, western democracies began regulating free enterprise with varying degrees of intensity and also established the beginnings of a social safety net to deal with capitalism's losers and victims. One factor in the growing role of government was the hard-headed recognition that if capitalism did not submit to some government intervention, its miseries and moral outrages might lead to the communist revolutions prophesied by Marx and Engels. Government 's intervention was not Communism but was intended to prevent Communism.

So in the United States the long journey began with the legislation of the Progressive Era and intensified in the New Deal under FDR. Most Democratic political leaders since the 1930s have embraced these evolutions in political liberalism and continued to tinker with them for incremental gains in social well-being, while most Republicans have been far less enthusiastic. Still, it has been a long time since we have seen major national politicians so openly pine for the political economy of the 1920s.

I said in a recent interview that libertarianism is not an intrinsically Christian worldview and that Christian embrace of it makes for an uneasy marriage. My friendly Christian "tea party" correspondents beg to differ, but any review of the great traditions of Christian social and political thought bears out my claim.

The options are so rich. We could begin with the social thought of the pre-liberal "Christendom" era, in which the state was generally understood to be partner to the church in advancing a Christian social order that included care of both bodies and souls. Or if you don't like Christendom, we could look at the way Protestant social ethics responded to the urban squalor and workplace sufferings of Gilded Age capitalism with insistent demands not just for the factory-owners to soften their hearts but also for the government to pass laws to limit their depredations.

If you don't like Protestant "Social Christianity," there is the very rich Catholic social teaching tradition, which began with Pope Leo XIII's analysis of these same problems in 1891 and has continued unabated to this day. Catholic social teaching has constantly called for a more organic understanding of society and a vision of the well-being of the national (and international) community as a whole rather than merely its atomized individuals. The Catechism today teaches that the proper role of the state is to "defend and promote the common good of civil society."

Or if you don't like the Catholic social teaching, there is a great deal of historic and contemporary evangelical social engagement that calls for the state to join with others, each in their proper role, to advance public justice and the common good. Evangelicals were involved in most of the great social reform efforts of the 19th and 20th centuries, most of which called for government intervention -- whether in restricting workplace racial segregation or the market's role in providing abortions.

These kinds of Christian traditions certainly understand that individuals matter, but that if so, it is especially those individuals whose needs go unmet and whose rights are routinely violated that matter most. These traditions also affirm that humans are social beings, and therefore the well-being of the communities we have created also matters. They understand that we were made by our Creator not just to claim rights for ourselves but to serve one another, and that a society governed by raw libertarian individualism cannot be the best we can do. Today's libertarian resurgence is at best an uneasy fit with Christian principles.

Fox continues to beat the drum of hatred.

Huckabee and Lahaye  continue to beat the drum of hatred in this sick and hate-fulled video
The Gospel is filled with words of fear not.  It seems all fox does if fill the air waves with Fear Obama.  

Litany based on Psalm 32

Psalm 33:12-22

Pastor: The nations are blessed who follow the ways of the Lord and live as the children of God.

Congregation: For the Lord looks over all of humanity who live upon the earth. The Lord God who created them knows their hearts and considers all they do.

Pastor: Rulers and nations are not saved by their might and the expense of their military, no warrior escapes by their great strength. The greatest military technology is a vain hope for deliverance for despite its awesome power, it cannot save.

Congregation: But the Lord looks upon those who live in awe and wonder of the Lord and trust in the unfailing love of God to help them in times of need.

Pastor: We wait in hope for the LORD who is our help and our shield. It is in the Lord that our hearts rejoice, It is in the Lord that we put our trust.

Congregation: May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you.

Luke 12:32-40

I heard the man tell
anyone who would listen
He had it all figured out
with charts and grafts
and the book of Revelation
Dissected into number and verse
with each word and phrase
given a new meaning know only to
the one doing the talking
before me on the T.V. Screen
The time was figured to the
day, hour minute
so that these who follow such things
could…………………
Could what?

I heard the man tell
and all were listening
that he wasn’t sure
as he faced life’s end
square in the face
he didn’t know
and yet had faith in the God of love
his family had gathered to be with him
in his final hour
Met with peace, dignity, stories and even some laughter
by a man
who knew only
God’s love
and was ready
Two men standing on a hill
One filled with faith and questions
The other with only his will


I chose the picture of the butterfly and the cross because the second man of which I spoke was someone from my intern congregation who made one for me and later shared his faith and joy while on his death bed.  Thank you for the precious gift of your faith.  

my way or God's way

Sunday August 8th, Genesis 15: 2 But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3 And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir." We humans tend to think in such a linier fashion. It is not our fault really I suppose. We are rather bound by this time thing. Abe had received and was fully aware of the promise. Now his concern switched from God’s blessings to how he would pull it off. God’s concern was how to get Abe to trust him that no matter how or in what time it worked out. It is a human tendency to talk of trusting in God and then acting as if we don’t. We tend to ignore that idea that if God is in control, it will be good. I often tell others to pray, trust God and then go ahead and get to work, trusting that God can work through them and what they are doing, pretty much the same advice Abe had for himself. God did work through it and in the end the world was blessed with two brothers, Isaac, the beginning of the Hebrew race and Ishmael, the beginning of the Arabic people, and to open minded people God’s hand can be seen working through both. It is hard not to worry at these times when we are suffering the consequences of 30 years of supply side economics, but worry is our way of, at least in part, being in control, or wishing we were. So Pray and trust God, then get to work, don’t worry. Or as the angels say, “fear not for the Lord is with you.”

all the sandy beaches

Monday August 9th, Genesis 15: 4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." 5 He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Abraham and Sarah waited for the promised son until they received that blessing late in life. For them, the star in the heavens and the grains of sand analogy was something far off and beyond their comprehension. Later the Hebrew people saw themselves and being the sand and the stars and all others only as something other. Then Jesus went to the cross for the salvation of all represented by the stars and the sand. Paul still had to carry the argument on however to include the Gentiles as the people of God, post-Jesus once again started to close down the definition of who was included in that stars and sand analogy. Today we still are arguing about who is included in that stars and sand analogy. Today, many who want to call themselves Christian want to exclude the sons of Ishmael, those whose gender orientation may be different, and whatever other category we can put someone in and point to say, not them. They have a limited view of God’s promise. Look up at the havens and count the stars if indeed you can count them. Now get a telescope and look again and count them if you can. Such is the kingdom of God. It is not limited to a constellation or a single beach, but includes all the heavens and all sand on all the beaches. Humanities limited view of who God is capable of loving is one of the main things for which we need forgiving.

Holy City

Tuesday August 10th, Hebrews 11: 8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. At this time in scripture there was still a rural preference. The nomadic way of life was considered good and the settled way of life bad. Stories such as Cain and Able’s offering and Sodom and Gomorrah reflect this sentiment. But if we could be so bold as to assume a God inspired flow through the multiple stories, authors, and writings that make up scripture, then let us turn to the Holy City in Revelation. If there will ever be such a city with its foundations on the earth and whose architect and builder is God, it will be the Holy City. In that city, which was the dream of Abraham and everyone who calls themselves a child of God, the river that runs through it is for life and the leaves of the trees along its banks for the healing of the nations, the gates are never closed, all are welcome and God is among us. That is a foundation to build a life toward.

God’s vision is one of relationships

Wednesday August 11th, Hebrews 11: 13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. We still have our separate nations, tribes, religions and languages. Heavens we even, through the marketing expertise of the media, have red and blue states and tea parties to encourage the less balanced among them to lessen the opposition through violence. God’s vision is one of relationships, people getting to know one another, all brothers and sisters in Christ. Scripture points us toward this vision, we run from it and start wars, demand birth certificates and citizenship papers and call people socialists on national TV (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/28/tim-lahaye-evangelical-ch_n_662621.html) As the Bush years have taught us, for those in power there is more money to be made in war than in diplomacy and peace. In God’s view however there is more of a future in seeing others as brothers and sisters in Christ.

do not fear little flock

Thursday August 12th, Luke 12: 32 "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Don’t be afraid, fear not, common precursors to Holy announcements or Holy visits. It is fear that keeps us from seeing the kingdom among us but not being among us. It is fear that allows us to separate ourselves into different factions and groups and decide theories and formulas for just and unjust wars and jihads but not love. It is fear that keeps us from fully trusting in God, thinking we need to run the show a bit more ourselves no faith. It is fear that keeps us from reaching out boldly and truly living as the children of God not trust. Fear, not doubt, is the opposite of faith. Doubt is the ants in the pants of faith and keeps it up and moving. Fear however keeps us all curled up in to a self protective ball without eyes and hearts closed, never to see the kingdom of God. Into the is world, the message comes, Don’t be afraid little flock, for the Father is, and has been, pleased to give you the kingdom.

do not fear

Friday August 13th, Luke 12: 33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. What does it mean to live the kingdom life without fear? Luke gives us some examples, and the all focus on God as the center. Keep your inner eye, your soul if you will, focused on the kingdom. Keep the Holy City in mind daily and try a bit more each day, to live it. Don’t give into the fear that streams daily from fox and friends and right wing radio, it has nothing to do with and in fact is the antithesis of Kingdom life and faith.

under a tree

Saturday August 14th, Luke 12: 38 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. 39 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." When Luther was asked what he would do if he knew the world would end tomorrow, he said he would plant a tree. He would plant a tree that takes time to grow, because no one knows the hour. He would plant a tree that takes time to grow because if you are living in the kingdom already, why would you do anything different. A tree that takes time to grow because that is a good way to live a life caring for the creation God has given us. A tree that takes time to grow, because we are not raptured off this earth somewhere up there to watch it’s destruction. But plant a tree because the final vision in scripture is that God comes down to live with us. When that happens it is always good to have a tree to sit under and have a conversation with God and friends.

Toxic Dispersants

excellent TED video on the problem of dispersants and the toxic cocktail they produce.  Well worth watching.

Watch Video

Opening Litany, Psalm 49

Pastor: Listen everyone, listen all who live in this world, those powerful and powerless, those with abundance of things and those with abundance of need for I will speak to you words of wisdom and understanding.

Congregation: We will listen to the message you bring to us from oh high.

Pastor: Why should you care when evil seems to invade the world and wickedness surrounds you?

Congregation: We feel lost, empty, abandoned.

Pastor: When you trust in wealth and support only the ways of those with great riches, you support emptiness.

Congregation: We know that no one can redeem the life of another or pay off God for ours or any one else’s salvation.

Pastor: Everyone, those with nothing, those with great wisdom, as well as those with great fortunes live for a while and then they die.

Congregation: all they accumulate means nothing and what they gain is tombs that will remain their houses forever,

Pastor: when we put out trust in God and care for God’s calling, God’s creation, God’s creatures we are remembered as the children of God.

Congregation: But we, despite all we have do not endure it is better therefore that we be remembered for what God did through us than for any striving of our own.

Luke 12:13-21

It’s mine
All mine
I worked for it all
and saved
and slaved
taking what the Lord has given me
and giving only to myself in return
Mine all mine
until someday when I retire
when I rest after seven
days, years, decades
rest on what I have heaped up
in layers
between my fears and I
between my soul and I
It’s mine
but I can’t shake this feeling
that maybe
I lost it

gaining weght

Sunday August 1st, Ecclesiastes 1 & 2: 2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." 12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. You can look at this two ways. One, either this guy needs his meds, or two, maybe he just has discovered what we all need to discover in life, that if all we are after is our own gain, what we gain is nothing. Looking at knowledge, learning, pushing to do better, these are all good things. I am glad my cell phone is ten times the computer my computer in seminary was. I am glad research is being done on solar cells, electric cars, batteries and environment, all of humanity will benefit greatly from these endeavors. The difference is between the pursuit of knowledge for the “I” verse the pursuit of knowledge for the “we.” Descartes used the term, I think, therefore I am (Cognito Ergo Sum). What God calls us to is I Love, therefore I am (Amo Ergo Sum). Thinking is being for the self, whereas love extends that thinking, or whatever else we do to the “us” which includes ALL of us. It is not the unexamined life that is meaningless, it is the one which is lived only for the self. When you are done, all you have left is the empty shell of yourself filled with empty knowledge. God calls us into relationships. We are called to love one another. John even connects it with the promise, this is what will make your life complete, the opposite of meaninglessness, to love one another as I have loved you.

Vanity, vanity, all is vanity

Monday August 2nd, Ecclesiastes 1&2: 20 So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. 21 For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. 22 What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? 23 All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless. All too often, our view of life becomes too much like a clothes line, we start at one end and hang things on it until we get to the end, and hopefully, at the end God will reward us for all the things we hung on the line, all the things we have done. Instead, God calls us onto a path, one where we are surrounded by others and by the God who always comes down and walks with us. If all we do in life is for some selfish end goal, we above all creatures are to be pitied. In the end all we are left with is a big pile of stinking stuff that relatives and others fight over while we lie alone dying. If life is lived as part of the body of Christ, full of give and take, sharing with one another and seeing in every blade of grass and every child’s eye, the presence of God, seeing in everything we have a blessing with which we can bless others, then we are living the kingdom life right here and now. In that Kingdom life there life is filled with meaningfulness. The others who receive the blessing of our blessings do not automatically become gracious children of God, just as it most likely took us a while to figure that out in our lives, but it is not about their outcome, it is about ours. Our maturity depends upon our ability to give. Those who can freely give are rich, those who can’t freely give are poor, and it has nothing to do with wealth.

eyes to the ground

Tuesday August 3rd, Colossians 3: 1-2 So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective. I am getting older and I have been doing a lot of gravel work. Consequently in the mornings when I get up, I tend to look at the ground right in front of me rather than the world up ahead. As I loosen up I begin to see the world up ahead and my spirit as well as my countenance brightens. God created the world and said it was good. God created humanity and said it was good. As we travel on the path of life, surrounded by the saints of God (though some would not consider themselves as such) if we are blessed our eyes are focused on the kingdom. If we are still burdened down by all we have done and all we have left to do it is not our back alone that aches as we shuffle along looking down. The final chapters in Revelation have a world ahead vision for us. It is the holy city, coming down, open to all, all peoples refreshed by the water of life, healing for all nations, gates to the city always open. Head down living builds tea parties and border fences, kingdom living builds Kingdom parties and welcome gates. It is the difference between “I” and “We”.

Every time we draw a line in the sand, Jesus is on the other side

Wednesday August 4th, Colossians 3: 9-11 Don't lie to one another. You're done with that old life. It's like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you've stripped off and put in the fire. Now you're dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ. Every time we draw a line in the sand, Jesus is on the other side. Every time we build a fence, whether it be literal at our borders with Mexico or with the new building material for border fences, paperwork, to keep people out. When we build these fences, we not only do a poor job of shutting others out, we do a good job of shutting ourselves off from the savior who is on the other side of the fence. The absolute saddest site in the world is the prison wall Israel erected with U.S money around the birthplace of Jesus, Bethlehem. Every time we go to war, the ones killed, on both sides, are the children of God. Every weapon that is produced steals bread from the mouths of hungry. Every time we enact “Papers Please” laws we are doubting the love and the divinity of Christ. On the other hand, every morsel of bread that is shared, is shared with Christ.

guard against greed

Thursday August 5th, Luke 12: 13 Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." 14 Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" 15 Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." Too often we want Jesus to solve our problems, and the problems we want solved we want to be solved in our favor. Instead of a “fix it for me Jesus” approach to life, we are called instead to a life of living and loving relationships, and we are not always on the receiving end. Jesus asks us the question, how are you going to handle this and every other situation in your life in a kingdom way? How are you going to solve this problem with your brother or sister in Christ? Step one is obvious, yet the hardest, it is to see the other as you brother or sister in Christ. Military spending, which makes up well over half of all spending is opposite of where we need to go. Security measures and fences and papers please laws are the antithesis of God’s love. More tax cuts for the wealthy who make their money off the labors of the poor is an anathema to God’s grace. Yet these are the directions we go because we secretly hope that someday we too will reap or rape the financial rewards of such policies. It is however a rape. It has nothing to do with love and leaves only victims in its path.

are you better off?

Friday August 6th, Luke 12: 18 "Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." 20 "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' We have all met someone with “I” trouble when they talk. Everything is about them. It is good to note that most of us have “I” trouble with the way we live if not the way we talk, especially when it comes to $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Kingdom life is not “I” life, it is “we” life. Look around and see the world your children and grandchildren will get, will it be as clean and healthy as the one you received? Look around at the children of God in your community, (remembering Jesus definition of neighbor in Luke 10) are they better off than before you came on the scene? Is everyone better off because of you or does the system you support help those with power and possessions more than those without? Do you work for corporations that hide tax revenue off shore and hope for your chance to suckle at the tit of big money, or do you wish to contribute to the benefit of all of God’s children?

what smells?

Saturday August 7th, Luke 12: 21 "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God." Where does your spirit focus? Salvation is not just “God and “I,” salvation is about the “we.” In the “Left Behind” series, people are raptured off the earth. In Revelation, the Holy City, with God a part of it, comes down to earth. Contrary to the religious right teaching, God Always comes Down to where you and we and thee live our day to day lives. If your theology is about God and I rather than you and we and thee, you are hoarding up the blessing, and like the manna of old, in no time at all it starts to stink.

Why It's Cool to Go to Church Again

Article by Norris Chumley PHD

As a little kid I always thought that church was cool. I liked the choir at my hometown Episcopal church, and going up to get wafers and juice. But the Scripture reading, prayers and sermons always seemed really boring. As I got older, I began to not feel God in church. Then I was forced to go to confirmation classes once a week as a teenager, for an entire year. The weird priest made those classes excruciatingly boring and tedious -- so bad that the day after my confirmation, I announced I was an atheist, and I never went to church again. I unconfirmed myself immediately, and lost my Christianity in a big way. I just thought being a Christian was irrelevant.

Before my return to graduate school (to Union Theological Seminary in New York) a decade ago, I went 30-something years attending various eastern meditation groups. I'd do my yoga, chant mantras and ruminate on the nothingness of existence. The deeper I got, the closer to myself I became, the emptier I felt. Yet I loved God, although the God-concept didn't fit with my yogic practices. The Jesus Christ concept really didn't fit, and I spent decades thinking the "Jesus freaks" were real losers, or even brain-washed. I couldn't stand the proselytizing and guilt-tripping that Christianity seemed to offer. I told people, "I don't need a mediator between me and God."

Then, in seminary, taking classes on monasticism and ancient Christianity, I began to strongly feel the presence of God. I got inspired to visit monasteries and very ancient churches, first in the U.S., then researching and filming hermits in Egypt, then in Greece and Eastern Europe, and finally in Russia. I met hermits and monks, and they let me film their descriptions of the inner Christian life. They took me to their monastery churches. My studies in Christian mysticism and ancient texts grew deeper and deeper. I discovered a prayer, the Jesus Prayer, or Kyrie Eleison -- "Lord have mercy," or "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me." (Some add "a sinner" at the end.) I loved ancient church so much that I'm making a movie and writing a book about them, coming early next year (Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer is a not-for-profit feature film, the result of my studies and renewed love-affair with Jesus Christ and church).

Now, 10 years later, I've returned to Christianity and go to church as often as possible. Here are my top ten reasons why I think church is cool. Please keep in mind each one of these points is enough to write a book about, or many volumes, as they have been in play for thousands of years:

1. The Eucharist, or Holy Communion. The bread and wine as the body and blood of Jesus Christ, God in human form, is a physical uniting with God inside. After all the prayers, chants and setting aside the self, I feel a tangible connection, a bond made between Heaven and Earth, when partaking of the Eucharist.

2. The Holy Trinity. All I can say is that the three-in-one, separate-yet-whole-at-the-same-time reality explains my continual human feeling of being separate from God, yet connected. I had learned in yoga that "All-Is-One," and that extends to Christianity in the Trinity.

3. God is human in Jesus Christ. This is also the Holy Trinity, incarnated, which means "in the flesh." The Holy Spirit, from God, becomes human in Christ. With the Eucharist or Communion, my humanness unites with God, too. Church gives me that. The experience is indescribably wonderful.

4. Love. Christ's teachings center in love for God and humanity. Despite years of problems, even wars, the central teaching of Jesus Christ is about love. I feel that love in the community of the church. I see the love of God and humanity in the service programs my church provides: homeless shelters, food and assistance for those who are in need, counseling, education, and other projects.

5. God is present in Creation. I see His infinite excellence everywhere the more I pray and attend church. Using the Jesus Prayer helps me connect to God in everything and everyone.

6. Community. After years of solitary meditation on emptiness, I love the fellowship of church. It's so cool and fun to get together with others who also love God. I've made a lot of lasting friendships at church, people who truly care, and we help each other, and we have many great times.

7. Singing hymns and chanting. Music feels like God in the form of sound waves.

8. Religious symbols. The church icons, books, candles, incense, the Cross -- all are tangible reminders to look to God, and to connect with His presence. Others in church are like living icons reminding me of God in Christ.

9. Prayers. To me, prayer is a portable connection to God. In prayer, I feel the presence of God. The Jesus Prayer particularly, used by monks and nuns, and in some churches, is especially powerful.

10. Church suppers. I love to cook, and I love to eat -- community church meals are especially fantastic. There's nothing quite like a church potluck or picnic.

diapers and depends

This Sunday, we hear of poor Sarah who went to the story to buy depends and was told she needed to also get diapers. She laughed. In the mean time Abraham argues with God and his cousin Lot loses his home to an act of God. Some think the story is about homosexuality, I think it is about hospitality.

James, Apostle

Mark 10:35-45

With each crashing wave along the shore
The water swirls
Around the outcropping of rock
Slowly eating away at its structure
Until
It consist only of the sand
Moving
And reshaping itself again
With the help of the waves
Along the beach
Smooth and gentle to walk on
Each grain
Once a part of a great structure
Now toppled by time
So too with the great structures
Of this world
Once powerful protectors of separation
Supported on the fears
Of those it is intended to serve
Only to end up
In time
A pinnacle
Surrounded by the sands
Until it too topples by its own weight.
In Christ there are no pinnacles
No outcroppings that stand above all others
Only the sands
Washing upon the shore
Supporting one another.

Luke 11:1-13

How dare I speak to God?
How dare I ask
For my needs
---- petty in their selfishness
---- often more out of my greed
---- than need
Ask
---- says the Lord
Ask, Seek, Knock
Be bold and brazen
Before the Lord of Host
Be bold and Brazen
Before the God of Love
Be bold
and receive in love
what the Lord has given
---- in love
Be bold in Prayer
Be bold in Love
---- and inside
---- deep inside
You will begin to know
You will begin to hear
---- this God of
---- love

God acts in History

Sunday July 25th, Genesis 18: 20 The LORD said, "Abraham, I have heard that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah are doing all kinds of evil things. 21 Now I am going down to see for myself if those people really are that bad. If they aren't, I want to know about it." Try as we might, we don’t convince God to our way of thinking, God checks things out personally. What usually happens is that our way of thinking comes more in line with God’s plan for us. Try as it might, and contrary to what some in the business believe, the church is not the final word on God’s judgment, or it’s blessings either, that too is up to God personally. When the Catholic leaders say that women’s ordination is a sin on par with priest that molest children, (see previous post in this blog) it has more to do with power and politics than with purity of the Gospel. Remember that whole, in Christ there is no East or West, no male or female thing? Having said that, it doesn’t mean we don’t bring our concerns to God, quite the contrary, that should be a part of our being every waking moment, as well as a lot of the sleeping moments. What often changes is not God, but rather our perception of who God is and what God wants. Through prayer, things do change for the better, and often times that includes our part in it.

God acts in history and in your and my brief histories not as the puppeteer who sets the scene and works the strings but rather as the great director who no matter what role fate casts us in conveys to us somehow from the wings, if we have our eyes, ears, hearts open and sometimes even if we don’t, how we can play those roles in a way to enrich and ennoble and hallow the whole vast drama of things including our own small but crucial parts in it.

Fredrick Buechner, “Telling Secrets” pg.32

Prevo and the mayors veto

Monday July 26th, Genesis 18: 32 Finally, Abraham said, "Please don't get angry, LORD, if I speak just once more. Suppose you find only ten good people there." "For the sake of ten good people," the LORD told him, "I still won't destroy the city." We have a hard time fathoming the depth of God’s grace. As the story goes, it was not even his last bid of ten that remained righteous. What was happening was Abrahams growing awareness of just how gracious God was. Was it God that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah or was it that God allowed Sodom and Gomorrah to destroy themselves? Truth be told, we will never know for sure. As we read the stories of old through the lens of the cross, even this looks to me as if it could be a story of grace. Heavenly visitors for Abraham being shown hospitality and showing blessing upon blessing in the form of a long ago promise being fulfilled. Sodom and Gomorrah imploding in upon themselves with the lack of grace and hospitality, and still the righteous among them being saved. Though on the surface some of the ancient stories may not seem so grace filled in our eyes, it is not God, but our eyes and ears that are in need of correction. In reading these stories, if you are not seeing God’s grace, you need to re-read it. Last year when the LGBT community was added to the Anchorage anti-discrimination ordnance the person sitting in front of me at the assembly meeting (wearing his T-Shirt from the Anchorage Baptists Temple) exclaimed, echoing the rhetoric of their pastor Jerry Prevo, that it looked like Sodom and Gomorrah won. (which was actually true as the mayor later vetoed the amendment) What they didn’t realize is that the whole story is one of hospitality and including the LGBT community in the anti-discrimination ordinance moved the community in that direction. The mayor’s veto moved us back to Sodom.

Be in Christ

Tuesday July 27th, Colossians 2: 6-7 My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you've been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You're deeply rooted in him. You're well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you've been taught. School's out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving. The more difficult and complicated I can make God’s message, the more easily I can manipulate the people who listen to me. It can be a real power trip and it feels good, it fills my ego, but if I am honest to myself, I have to admit it is wrong. Paul’s counsel is simple and straightforward. Christ is yours, live in Christ knowing you won’t be let go of, trust the God within you, it is not rocket science, live as Christ would have you live and let others see that grace permeate your life. You are in Christ. Be in Christ. Live in Christ. Or as we say in our mission statement, be inspired by God’s love to Praise, Nurture and Serve.

next door

Wednesday July 28th, Colossians 2: 11-15 Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It's not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you're already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it's an initiation ritual you're after, you've already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. Being in Christ is “Being” in Christ. Sometimes it may seem that the work the Church is keeping the in people in and the out people, who may be different from the in people, out, but that is not Church as in the body of Christ, but rather church as in Big business in a little pond. As Christians we are not ruled by the rule of Law but by the rule of Grace. Love one another as I have loved you is the way Jesus puts it. We ask the question, Who is the other? Jesus answers with stories like the good Samaritan and asks us for the obvious answer. Christ raised you from your dead lives to a life in Christ and simply asks you to go and bring this message that the Kingdom is near, in your heart, in your mind, in your life, to the least lost and lonely in this world. They often live right next door.

Papa

Thursday July 29th, Luke 11: 1 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples." 2 He said to them, "When you pray, say: " 'Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. 3 Give us each day our daily bread. 4 Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.' “All in all, it is a very simple prayer. Father, means God is Close, the word used is Abba or Papa. This is a God where you just want to sit in his lap and fall asleep. And yet we also consider God and God’s name to be holy, and for which we show loving respect. God’s kingdom is among us, sometimes we forget that and we ask in the prayer that when we do forget, that God will remind us so we can have the joy of living in the Kingdom here and now. Let us not live in want but have all we need and be content with all we have. May we also have the ability to experience the joy of sharing from what we have been given with others who make up the body of Christ, the world. Give us the strength and wisdom to forgive others and learn to live in harmony because we all know all the garbage for which God has forgiven us. Some would say we are asking God to cut us as much slack as we are willing to cut others. And when we start going down the wrong path, do whatever it takes to get us turned around, whether it be others intervening, a gentle tug or a whop up side the head with a 2x4. Amen.

who's that knocking on my door?

Friday July 30th, Luke 11: 5 Then he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.' 7 "Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs. 9 "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. It sounds like we are being told to be obnoxious before God. I believe the point is to be persistent. Make life a process of being aware of the connection with God. Make your life a process of keeping up your end of the communication. Don’t stop talking to God. Pray unceasingly. In the process of always being in the moment with God, always being present with God, we will not necessarily remain pure, but we will remain honest before God. Even our failings are paths to God’s grace and renewal. Remember that everything you think, do and say “Is” a prayer. You simply have to ask yourself the question, “is this a prayer I want to be praying right now?” If not, help me dear Lord to live into a new prayer that comes from Your heart. Amen.

Unanswered prayers

Saturday July 31st, Luke 11: 11 "Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" My three youngest children wanted a pet snake when they were younger. They didn’t get it. Not because snakes are so bad, but I just didn’t see them as much of a pet. I also didn’t like the idea of a pet living in a small cage, it didn’t seem like much of a life to me. And to add a bit of honesty, I really don’t like snakes. So I made a choice, one of my children was not happy, but a choice made out of love for my children non-the-less. It is not always that God dislikes our desires, it just may be that our desires just might not good for us right then. God acts in love. Even when disappointed with what seems to be God’s answer, just trust that God acts in love. Remember the story of Abraham and Sarah, sometimes it is the right answer, just not the right time. Sometimes the answer is no for good reasons.
Unanswered prayers 

Opening Litany based on Luke 11

Pastor: "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.'

Congregation: We could very easily respond, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.'
 
Pastor: I tell you, though you might not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet if he becomes obnoxious and keeps knocking on the door, ringing the door bell and honking the horn you will most likely get up and give him as much as he needs.

Congregation: We hear the word of the Lord when the Lord tells us to “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. 

Pastor: "Which of you parents, if your child asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?

Congregation: Not I

Pastor: Or if they ask for an egg, will give them a scorpion?

Congregation: Not I

Pastor: If you then, though you don’t always get things right, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

Congregation: We thank and praise the Lord who may not always give us what we want, but always provides for our needs. 

Note: I will be preaching on the story of hospitality and blessing in Genesis 18 & 19 and therefore used the first part of the gospel for the day as the opening litany with the remaining section which includes the basis of the Lord's Prayer in the communion litany.

Rober Ailes, Fox News and Racebating the elections

A long line of inmates solemnly enters and exits a prison yard through a revolving door. As the lone black inmate reenters society, he peers into the camera with a menacing glance. He is the only inmate to do so.

The ad described above was created by George H.W. Bush's campaign as part of a broad strategy to terrify America by, as psychologist and political consultant Drew Westen explains, playing on "fears of the dangerous, lawless, violent, dark black male."

While the most infamous Willie Horton ads were created by an independent organization, it was Bush's media consultant Roger Ailes who "gleefully" told Time Magazine in August of 1988, "The only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it."

1988 wasn't Ailes' first experience dividing Americans along racial lines. During a taping of the "Man in the Arena" series in 1968, the Nixon campaign stumbled on a problem when a panelist they thought was a physician turned out to be a psychiatrist. Ailes quickly figured out a solution. According to Rick Perlstein's Nixonland, Ailes would substitute a "good, mean, Wallaceite cab-driver. Wouldn't that be great? Some guy to sit in there and say, 'Awright, Mac, what about these n***ers?'" Perlstein added that "Nixon then could abhor the uncivility of the words, while endorsing a 'moderate' version of the opinion."

Given his history, it should be no surprise Ailes' minions at Fox News have obsessed over the discredited 18 month-old story of alleged voter intimidation by New Black Panther Party members on the day of the 2008 election. Since June 30, Fox News has spent more than eight hours of airtime and 95 segments on the story.

And no network has done more to expose Americans to the extreme and hateful politics of the New Black Panther Party, which has been designated a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, than Fox, where the group's spokespeople have appeared more than 50 times since 1998.

The truth is, it was President Bush's Justice Department, not Obama's, that made the decision not to pursue criminal charges against members of the New Black Panther Party for alleged voter intimidation at a Philadelphia polling center in 2008. In fact, the Obama administration successfully obtained default judgment against Samir Shabazz, a member of the New Black Panther Party carrying a nightstick outside the polling center on Election Day.

Their mission isn't to find the truth, but to plant the seed in viewers' minds that maybe, just maybe, the President and the Attorney General are the same type of militants seen wielding a nightstick and repeatedly slurring whites on Fox News. As the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page wrote, "Now the New Black Panthers are being used to vilify a black president as being soft on black racism. Coming soon, I am sure, to campaign attack ads near you."

Roger Ailes and Fox News -- along with the entire Republican Party -- are praying the mainstream media will cave to right wing pressure and delve into this story. As the chief communications strategist for Republicans, Ailes couldn't have scripted it better.

Article by Ari Rabin-Havt

Rome Fiddles, We Burn from the New York Times

By MAUREEN DOWD

If the Vatican is trying to restore the impression that its moral sense is intact, issuing a document that equates pedophilia with the ordination of women doesn’t really do that.

The Catholic Church continued to heap insult upon injury when it revealed its long-awaited new rules on clergy sex abuse, rules that the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said signaled a commitment to grasp the nettle with “rigor and transparency.”

The church still believes in its own intrinsic holiness despite all evidence to the contrary. It thinks it’s making huge concessions on the unstoppable abuse scandal when it’s taking baby steps.

The casuistic document did not issue a zero-tolerance policy to defrock priests after they are found guilty of pedophilia; it did not order bishops to report every instance of abuse to the police; it did not set up sanctions on bishops who sweep abuse under the rectory rug; it did not eliminate the statute of limitations for abused children; it did not tell bishops to stop lobbying legislatures to prevent child-abuse laws from being toughened.


There is no moral awakening here. The cruelty and indecency of child abuse once more inspires tactical contrition. All the penitence of the church is grudging and reactive. Church leaders are merely as penitent as they need to be to protect the institution.

Can you imagine such a scene in the confessional? “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I am as sorry as my job or school requires me to be.”“But my daughter, that is not true penitence. That’s situational penitence.”

After the Belgian police bracingly conducted raids on the church hierarchy, inspired in part by the horrifying case of a boy molested for years by his uncle, the bishop of Bruges, a case that the church ignored and covered up for 25 years, the pope did not applaud the more aggressive tack. He condemned it.

In a remarkable Times story recently, Laurie Goodstein and David Halbfinger debunked the spin that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had been one of the more alert officials on the issue of sexual abuse:

“The future pope, it is now clear, was also part of a culture of nonresponsibility, denial, legalistic foot-dragging and outright obstruction. More than any top Vatican official other than John Paul, it was Cardinal Ratzinger who might have taken decisive action in the 1990s to prevent the scandal from metastasizing in country after country, growing to such proportions that it now threatens to consume his own papacy.” If Roman Polanski were a priest, he’d still be working here.

Stupefyingly, the new Vatican document also links raping children with ordaining women as priests, deeming both “graviora delicta,” or grave offenses. Clerics who attempt to ordain women can now be defrocked.

On Beliefnet, Mark Silk, a professor of religion at Connecticut’s Trinity College, suggested that the stronger threat against women’s ordination is not “a maladroit add-on” but the medieval Vatican’s “main business.” After the Vatican launched two inquisitions of American nuns, it didn’t seem possible that the archconservative Il Papa and his paternalistic redoubt could get more unenlightened, but they have somehow managed it.

Letting women be priests — which should be seen as a way to help cleanse the church and move it beyond its infantilized and defensive state — is now on the list of awful sins right next to pedophilia, heresy, apostasy and schism.

Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, the chairman of the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, asserted, “The Catholic Church, through its long and constant teaching, holds that ordination has been, from the beginning, reserved to men, a fact which cannot be changed despite changing times.”

But if it was reserved to celibate men centuries ago simply as a way for the church to keep land, why can’t it be changed? If a society makes strides in not subordinating women, why can’t the church reflect that? If men prove that all-male hierarchies can get shamefully warped, why can’t they embrace the normality of equality? The Vatican’s insistence on male prerogative is misogynistic poppycock — enhancing American Catholics’ disenchantment with Rome.

In The New Republic, Garry Wills wrote about his struggle to come to terms with the sins of his church: Jesus “is the one who said, ‘Whatever you did to any of my brothers, even the lowliest, you did to me.’ That means that the priests abusing the vulnerable young were doing that to Jesus, raping Jesus. Any clerical functionary who shows more sympathy for the predator priests than for their victims instantly disqualified himself as a follower of Jesus. The cardinals said they must care for their own, going to jail if necessary to protect a priest. We say the same thing, but the ‘our own’ we care for are the victimized, the poor, the violated. They are Jesus.”

Faith, by Fredrick Buechner in Wishful Thinking

When God told Abraham, who was a hundred at the time, that at the age of ninety his wife Sarah was finally going to have a baby, Abraham came close to knocking himself out – fell on his face and laughed, as Genesis put it (17:17) In another version of the story (18:8), Sarah is hiding behind the door eavesdropping, and here it’s Sarah herself who nearly splits a gut – although when God asks her about it afterward, she denies it. “No but you did laugh,” God says, thus having the last word as well as the first. God doesn’t seem to hold their outburst against them, however. On the contrary, he tells them the baby’s going to be a boy and that he want them to name him Isaac. Isaac in Hebrew means laughter.

Why did the two old crocks laugh? They laughed because they knew only a fool would believe that a woman with one foot in the grave was soon going to have her other in the maternity ward. They laughed because God expected them to believe it anyway. They laughed because God seemed to believe it. They laughed because they half-believed it themselves. They laughed because laughing felt better than crying. They laughed because if by some crazy chance it just happened to come true, they would really have something to laugh about, and in the meanwhile it helped keep them going.

Faith is “the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen,” says the Epistle to the Hebrews (11:1). Faith is laughter at the promise of a child called laughter.

If someone had come up to Jesus when he was on the cross and asked him if it hurt, he might have answered, like the man in the old joke, “Only when I laugh,” But he wouldn’t have been joking. Faith dies, as it lives, laughing.

Faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession. It is on-again-off-again rather than once-and-for-all. Faith is not being sure where you’re going but going anyway. A journey without maps. Tillich said that doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.

I have faith that my friend is my friend. It is possible that all his motives are ulterior. It is possible that what he is secretly drawn to is not me but my wife or my money. But there’s something about the way I feel when he’s around, about the way he looks me in the eye, about the way we can talk to each other without pretense and be silent together without embarrassment, that makes me willing to put my life in his hands as I do each time I call him friend.

I can’t prove the friendship of my friend. When I experience it, I don’t need to prove it. When I don’t experience it, no proof will do. If I tried to put his friendship to the test somehow, the test itself would queer the friendship I was testing. So it is with the Godness of God.

The five so-called proofs for the existence of God will never prove to unfaith that God exist. They are merely five ways of describing the existence of the God you have faith in already.

Almost nothing that makes any real difference can be proved. I can prove the law of gravity by dropping a shoe out the window. I can prove that the world is round if I’m clever at that sort of thing – that radio works, that light travels faster than sound. I cannot prove that life is better than death or love better than hate. I cannot prove the greatness of the great or the beauty of the beautiful. I cannot even prove my own free will; maybe my most heroic act, my truest love, my deepest thought, are all just subtler versions of what happens when the doctor taps my knee with his little rubber hammer and my foot jumps.

Faith can’t prove a damned thing. Or a blessed thing either.


Wishful Thinking at Amazon

Patriotism

let us proclaim a new kind of patriotism, which takes as its object of ultimate loyalty not the nation-state, but the human race

Opening litany Psalm 15

Psalm 15

Pastor: LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary?

Congregation: The One whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous; The one who speaks the truth from his heart and utters no slander. It is the one who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on others. 
 
Pastor: LORD, Who may live on your holy hill?

Congregation: It is the one who despises what is vile in humanity and honors those who fear the LORD; it is the one who keeps an oath even when it hurts. It is the one who lends his money without interest and the one who does not accept a donation to vote against the needs of the innocent. 

Pastor: Such a person will never be shaken.

Congregation: Help us to walk in your ways O Lord.

the secret of FOX news success

It’s one of the great assumptions underlying modern democracy that an informed citizenry is preferable to an uninformed one. “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1789. This notion, carried down through the years, underlies everything from humble political pamphlets to presidential debates to the very notion of a free press. Mankind may be crooked timber, as Kant put it, uniquely susceptible to ignorance and misinformation, but it’s an article of faith that knowledge is the best remedy. If people are furnished with the facts, they will be clearer thinkers and better citizens. If they are ignorant, facts will enlighten them. If they are mistaken, facts will set them straight.
In the end, truth will out. Won’t it?

Maybe not. Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

full article in the Boston Globe

July 22nd, Mary Magdalene Apostle

John 20:1-2, 11-18
St. Mary Magdalene

Why are you crying?
The morning air seemed crisp and sharp
but all was a blur
the hope
the love
buried and taken
Why are your crying?
at the empty tomb
fresh in the morning light
with the stench of death
gone
go tell
Mary
beloved of Jesus
tell the others
what you do not see
and what is there
the tomb empty
and the Son of God
free from the bounds that held him
Go and tell
as the first to announce to the world
life
death conquered
and the gift
life
given

Luke 10:38-42

If I just keep busy---- (listen)
busy enough
---- (listen)
then I can avoid that commitment
---- in this life
that makes me uncomfortable
---- in this life
and leads to life
Listen
---- said the voice of God
---- on the mountain
This is my Son
---- said the voice of God
---- as Jesus stood in the water
---- and the dove came down
Follow
---- said the Christ of God
---- to a people longing
---- for life
and too busy to find it
---- (This is my Son
---- my beloved
---- Listen to him)

entertained angels unaware

Sunday July 18th, Genesis 18: 1 The LORD appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. 2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground. 3 He said, "If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. 4 Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. 5 Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant." "Very well," they answered, "do as you say." It had been such a long time waiting, they almost forgot what they were waiting for. The promise to Abraham and Sarah was made almost a lifetime ago it seemed, but Abraham was not bitter. Indeed, Abraham lived in that place where most of us live, fluctuating between resignation and hope. In the mean time he had become a patient person, one who lived on hope and who had never forgotten the lessons of caring for the sojourner in your midst. On this day, some strangers appear on the horizon. Abraham responds out of who he is, who he has become, a welcoming and hospitable person. The welcome was warm and gracious, focused on the needs of the other. This is the beginning of the story that leads to Sodom and Gomorrah. There the towns’ people focused their needs on themselves and in wonton disregard for the other wanted to have their way with the strangers, the antitheses of hospitality. It has is interesting how we can turn a story about hospitality into a Biblical mandate to practice inhospitality to the homosexual community. Some have entertained angels unaware.

you will find the same thing

Monday July 19th, Genesis 18: 9 "Where is your wife Sarah?" they asked him. "There, in the tent," he said. 10 Then the LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son." Some religions call it Karma, you do good and good returns. It is a good principle, although it not always so straightforward. Showing hospitality does not always bring hospitality in return. Life is not always as simple as A+B=C. But hospitable people, families, churches and communities often find hospitality returned to them. Welcoming the stranger into your midst requires that you are not committed to remaining static. Welcoming the stranger into your midst will bring change to your life or the life of any organization. And just as the blessing of new life brought to Sarah would mean her life would never again be the same. So too, the new life brought to your organization will mean you will never again be the same. Some find that scary, others just laugh. I am reminded of a story. A man was out working in his field when someone came walking along the road with a donkey loaded with his worldly possessions. “What kind of people live in that town up ahead?” was the question he shouted to the man working in the field. “What kind of people lived in the town you just came from?” was his questioning reply. The man with his possessions told him stories of how horrid and nasty the people were, full of disrespect and malice. “I suspect you will find the same kind of people in that town up ahead” the man in the field told him after hearing his stories. “You better keep moving if you are going to find what you are looking for” was the advice and the gift given. About an hour later another man came along with a donkey filled with his possessions and asked the same question of the man in the field, “What kind of people live in the town up ahead?” The man’s response, “What kind of people lived in the town you just came from?” This time he was regaled with stories of friendship and hospitality, caring relationships and community. “I hated to leave, but just felt the call for something new and different” the traveler said. “I suspect you will find the same kind of people in that town up ahead” the man in the field told him after hearing his stories. “I think if you stop there you will find what you are looking for.”

Holy Liturgical Laughter

Tuesday July 20th, Genesis 18: Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?" 13 Then the LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, 'Will I really have a child, now that I am old?' 14 Is anything too hard for the LORD ? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son." There is some news where the only response one can muster is to either laugh or cry, and they both come from that wonder and mis-belief that has one foot in our deepest hopes and the other in our deepest fears. Is anything too hard for the Lord? It appears not. But for Sarah, with one foot in the nursing home and the other in the nursery, laughter was her only choice. I have often thought laughter to be a proper response following the confession and absolution in worship. Holy, liturgical laughter at the absurdity of our forgiveness, at our own frailty at the realization that this is the umpteenth time we have been forgiven for the same thing, and at the amazing response that is God’s grace. Holy Liturgical Laughter.

Cognito Ergo Sum?

Wednesday July 21st, Colossians 1: 15-18 We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body. We can speculate all we want but we will never totally know God in Heaven. The gift that has been given to us is Emmanuel, God with us, the one we call Jesus. To know Jesus is to know all we need to know about God. To know Jesus is to know God’s revelation to humanity about who God is. Jesus’ message? Love God, Love others! That is what the essence of life is all about, all the rest is just filler. It is not Cognito Ergo Sum, I think therefore I am, it is Amo Ergo Sum, I Love therefore I am. And love is not just a feeling, it is a verb. That may call us on different paths of action, worship, and even belief, and indeed often does, but never confuse the path with the purpose. When God so loved the world he gave his only son, it was not just part of the world. When God created all that is and called it good, it was not just part of what was created. When we are called to love God and love others, it is not just part of the others we are called to love. God is the epitome of and calls us to live to the fullness, Amo Ergo Sum.

flip God the bird

Thursday July 22nd, Colossians 1: 26-29 This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it's out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God's glory. It's that simple. That is the substance of our Message. Some have said that the gift of Jesus was to make us all honorary Jews, Children of the Promise. Contrary to what many faiths may teach, Jesus did not make anyone the bouncer of heaven. What Jesus did was to let the world know there was no bouncer in heaven. No bouncer, no cover charge, no closed sign, no limits, just a call to love and to spend your life finding out each day what that means. There are twelve gates to the Holy City and they will all be open to the nations. When we build walls, pass papers please laws, etc.. we are only building a wall around ourselves in an attempt to keep God out. The Arizona law, as well as the thirty foot high cement and concertina wire “security fence” in the Holy Land are an affront to, a sin against, the essence of God. Forget all the political cover, just flip God the bird and get it over with.

Triangels

Friday July 23rd, Luke 10: 38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" Sometimes all that hospitality can make us inhospitable. It is then we know the focus is on “me” not “thee.” I am sure the meal and the preparations were nice. I even think Mary could have practiced a bit of hospitality here and helped her sister. In a more modern US context I wouldn’t be surprised if Jesus wouldn’t hop up and cut up some veggies, some of the best conversations take place around the center island in the kitchen with cutting boards and a bottle of wine. But even in today’s kitchen we must remember that there is a fine and fuzzy line between serving and self-serving.

"be" not just "do" Church - We are the Church

Saturday July 24th, Luke 10: 41 "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." At what point does “church” become work? At what point does it cease to be fun? I just picked up some supplies for my Monday Brewing and Theology day. The lady at the store just got off the phone and commented, wow, when you get that stressed out over a hobby you need a different hobby. Not that religion is or should be a hobby, but at what point do committees and programs operate for the sake of committees and programs? At what point do we stress over doing church that we forget to be the church, the body of Christ? Whatever you do in church, don’t just “do” church, be church. Worship is a must. This is a good place to put in the words to Jay Beech Band’s “the Church Song”

The Church Song

REFRAIN
We are the Church,
the body of our Lord;
We are all God's children,
we have been restored.


The Church is not a building
where people go to pray;
It's not made out of sticks and stones,
it's not made out of clay.

REFRAIN

You can go to worship
but you cannot go to Church;
You can't find a building that's alive
no matter how you search.

REFRAIN

The Church is not a business,
a committee, or a board;
It's not a corporation
for the business of the Lord.

REFRAIN

The Church, it is the people,
living out their lives
Called, enlightened, sanctified
for the work of Jesus Christ.

REFRAIN

Text and music by Jay Beech, ©1988.

Listen and buy "the Church Song"

Luke 10:25-37

Crouched amid my humanness
I venture out
---- boldly
and I understand
---- intellectually
the meaning of the commandments
the meaning of life itself
that I am to love (LOVE)
not just in what I feel
---- (THE LORD)
but even in what I don’t feel
but still do
it sounds easy
it sounds good
and it is surely a wisdom
I will pass on
---- and on
-------- and on
to the third and forth generation
of those who………….
I will pass it on
---- (WITH ALL THAT YOU ARE)
the meaning of life
the meaning of the commandments
I only wish “they” would know these words
And understand what “I” understand
---- (AND LOVE)
and maybe “they” would not act like
---- look like
-------- talk like
that
---- (YOUR NEIGHBOR)
then the world would be a better place
and all would be sweetness and light
---- (AS YOURSELF)
if they would just learn to love
(AND JESUS SAID,
“GO AND DO LIKEWISE”)
-------- ?like me?

Oh that is not hard to do

Sunday July 11th, Deuteronomy 30: 11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" We often make the Christian life more difficult than it needs to be. We tend to fill it with rules and regulations, do’s and don’ts, catechism to memorize, and sometimes even sermon notes for the confirmation class when we all know they should be for the adults. What we know in the back of our minds is that the tougher we make it, the more we clergy types are in control and we feel good about that. The problem is that the more we are in control God is pushed to the side. Without a great bit of difficulty, and perhaps even with an improvement in the way things work, we clergy types might find ourselves out of a job. The truth is, what we do is not rocket science. It involves living out a loving relationship with God the Creator, living in a loving relationship with one another as Community, and living in relationship with the Creation from which we were formed. It involves being willing each day to have your eyes opened to some new dimension of what that might be and trusting in God to help show you new ways to show those loving relationships. It involves walking one day at a time as a child of God, knowing that the gift of salvation is yours, as well as your neighbors, through the grace of God.

loopholes are hard

Monday July 12th, Deuteronomy 30: 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. The church has been studying the issue of homosexuality for many years. Studies have been presented and voted on, legislation considered, scripture interpreted consciences bound and unbound and on and on and on. In the mean time, we continue to be a church that practices exclusion. Most of the games for clergy are to deal with the issue of marriage and how do you define monogamous same sex relationships without the benefit of a legal marriage. For the most part it is our generation that is struggling with the issue. Ask most kids of high school or college age and they will look at you like you have just asked a stupid question, which you have. If two people love each other and want to live in a mature and committed relationship it is a good thing and the church should be willing to bless that union and fight for its legal status. If two people want to have an excuse for cheap sex, whether the relationship is homosexual or heterosexual it is not a good thing and should not be receiving legal or religious status. The choice of who is up to them. The word of God is near you, it is not hard except for when we try to find some way around it, when we try to find some loophole. Love God, Love others, and walk daily in the ever unfolding discovery of what that means. Jesus calls us to love our enemies and we are still working out the details of how to let our children love one another.

no new sins

Tuesday July 13th, Colossians 1: 13-14 God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He's set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much, the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating. Unfortunately we still haven’t learned well and some of us all the time and all of some of the time keep repeating those sins. That is our life, living as forgiven children of God, and living as sinners, each and every one of us. The way Luther said it was that we are at the same time saints and sinners. What God did was rescue us from dead-end alleys, our job is to learn what it means to walk out in the light and to work on overcoming our addiction to this dark dead-end alleys. It is an adventure each and every day and it is amazing how often we turn the corner and head down toward those back alleys again. That is when God tries to turn our focus back toward the light. Sometimes we listen and are amazed at the grace. There are no new sins in the world, only new manifestations of the ones we have been forgiven for time after time after time, generation after generation after generation.

Big G, little g

Wednesday July 14th, Luke 10: 25 Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. "Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?" Most of us have met someone with an “I” problem. This religion scholar was a good guy, a smart guy, someone who wanted to walk as a child of God. He just wanted to be in charge of the process. That is the first and biggest hurtle we all face, the first commandment stuff. What must “I” do to get eternal life? Nothing!!! It is that “I” thing that most often keeps us from living in the glow of God’s grace now. It is the temptation in the garden raising its head one more time. Just eat of this tree of knowledge and you can be like god with a small “g”. The only god the “I” thing gets us is the small ”g” god. Walking as a child of God, accepting God’s forgiveness and grace brings us into company with the big “G” God. Remember this formula: big “I” = little “g”; little “i” = Big “G”. With one of them comes happiness.

day by day

Thursday July 15th, Luke 10: 26 He answered, "What's written in God's Law? How do you interpret it?" 27 He said, "That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself." 28 "Good answer!" said Jesus. "Do it and you'll live." The answer he gave was correct. The trouble is that it is hard to love God with all you passion if you have an “I” problem, because your passion is reserved for yourself. It is hard to love your neighbor as yourself if you have an “I” problem because no neighbor could measure up to the standards you set for them, while ignoring the standards they have set for you. “Do it and you’ll live” contains no big “I’s”. It is a process, day by day as the mercies of God attend us bringing comfort to our anxious souls. So Savior lead me to the home I treasure where at last I will find eternal rest, surrounded by all my neighbors.

subject to object

Friday July 16th, Luke 10: 36 "What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?" For Jesus, neighbor is redefined from a geographic designation, one who lives close to my house, to an opportunity designation, one God has placed close to my heart. The idea of neighbor has moved from subject to be debated and discussed, to the object of my caring and living as a child of God. The geographic designation is easy if we move into the right neighborhood, send our children to the right private schools, go to the right church etc. It would all work out so well if God didn’t keep putting “those” people in our way. What God is trying to tell us is that it is through “those” people that we find our way.

making life, life

Saturday July 17th, Luke 10: 37 "The one who treated him kindly," the religion scholar responded. Jesus said, "Go and do the same." There, that doesn’t seem so hard now does it? Well it is not hard to understand but implementing it into action is something else again. As William Sloane Coffin puts it, “It is one thing to cry with the prophets of old to let justice roll down like an ever present stream, it is quite another to design the irrigation system.” For most of us it takes a life time to work on that irrigation system for God’s love and grace flowing through us and out into the world. For the children of God it is what makes life, well, life.

Small government, trickle down, and tax cuts are not the solution, they are the problem

When people talk of a grass roots movement for lower taxes and smaller government what they have in mind is something that will benefit the average family.  What they don't realize is they are being duped, used and manipulated by the wealthy, the large corporations and the movers and shakers in this world to work against their own self interest.  The report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out what thirty years of Regan's, the TEA party's  and the Heritage Foundation's rhetoric of  "the government is the problem not the solution" results in.  Small government, trickle down, and tax cuts are not the solution, they are the problem, and the vast majority of the American people have been duped. In addition to economics, we can point to pollution, oil spills and the number of jobs and corporations who move off shore or overseas as the benefits of such policies. 

The gap between the wealthiest Americans and middle- and working-class Americans has more than tripled in the past three decades, according to a June 25 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

New data show that the gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest parts of the population in 2007 was the highest it's been in 80 years, while the share of income going to the middle one-fifth of Americans shrank to its lowest level ever.

The CBPP report attributes the widening of this gap partly to Bush Administration tax cuts, which primarily benefited the wealthy. Of the $1.7 trillion in tax cuts taxpayers received through 2008, high-income households received by far the largest -- not only in amount but also as a percentage of income -- which shifted the concentration of after-tax income toward the top of the spectrum.

The average household in the top 1 percent earned $1.3 million after taxes in 2007, up $88,800 just from the prior year, while the income of the average middle-income household hovered around $55,300. While the nation's total income has grown sharply since 1979, according to the CBPP report, the wealthiest households have claimed an increasingly large share of the pie.

Arloc Sherman, a researcher for CBPP, said the income gap is expanding not because the middle class is losing income, but because the wealthiest incomes are skyrocketing.

"If income growth had been shared equally among all income groups, the families at the bottom would have $6,000 per year more than they do now, and the middle would have $13,000 more," he said.
Sherman said one key to closing the gap is a responsible tax policy.

"It would be a big step in the wrong direction to enact proposals like a big rollback in the taxes on the wealthiest estates," Sherman said. "It would probably help to enact some of the middle class tax extender proposals advanced by the President and the Democrats, including things like the extension of the expanded child tax credit."

The CBPP data do not show the effect of the recession that began in December 2007, but economists say that the recession has probably reduced the income gap only temporarily due to the severe drop in the stock market.

"Everyone, rich and poor, has been hammered in this recession," Sherman said. "But in the past, the wealthy have rebounded more easily than the middle."

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Opening Litany Psalm 15

Pastor: LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary?

Congregation: The One whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous; The one who speaks the truth from his heart and utters no slander. It is the one who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on others. 

Pastor: LORD, Who may live on your holy hill?

Congregation: It is the one who despises what is vile in humanity and honors those who fear the LORD; it is the one who keeps an oath even when it hurts. It is the one who lends his money without interest and the one who does not accept a donation to vote against the needs of the innocent. 

Pastor: Such a person will never be shaken.

Congregation: Help us to walk in your ways O Lord. 

Pastor: Welcome to Worship at Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church.

Congregation: Where we Delight in the Diversity of All of God’s Children.