tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72264815064705069622024-03-13T08:35:19.795-07:00Two Friars and A FoolAric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.comBlogger400125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-92216386158623224872011-03-01T08:00:00.000-08:002011-03-01T08:00:04.445-08:00We Have Moved<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.twofriarsandafool.com/"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSMvcasAjtDNQvXOQSoQyFe6I7FufDrg_L3_eTBPkGasKbWRunvvcASG8phpFdkf4IxAkgHniPlMEhXPGL20Emv_KKhUYBL-m4yYC7D6kCg-Cs5vxanP_rrAiZ8KLoQMoH9hDsAxEQsWZi/s400/fblogo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Come visit us at our <a href="http://www.twofriarsandafool.com/">new location</a>!</b></span></div>Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-33609552710879314252011-02-28T08:27:00.000-08:002011-02-28T08:27:00.195-08:00Tomorrow is the DayOur <a href="http://www.twofriarsandafool.com/">new site</a> launches tomorrow! That means this space is going to go quiet. It is not going to disappear immediately. We may eventually migrate most of the content over and close this space down, but for now it will remain if you wish to search through the archives. New high quality content from many different voices will all be hosted at <a href="http://www.twofriarsandafool.com/">www.twofriarsandafool.com</a>.<br />
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If you haven't done so yet, there are a couple things you can do to keep track of our work and join the conversation:<br />
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Follow us on twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/TwoFriars">@TwoFriars</a><br />
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Like our Facebook page: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/TwoFriarsandaFool">www.facebook.com/TwoFriarsandaFool</a><br />
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Bring your friends to the party!Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-75674241848558981802011-02-27T08:26:00.000-08:002011-02-27T08:26:00.087-08:00Preview: Many New Voices<div style="font-family: inherit;">The entire goal of the new <a href="http://www.twofriarsandafool.com/">Two Friars and a Fool</a> is to open the provoke good conversation. To that end we want more voices represented on the site than our own, and we'd like those voices to come from a variety of backgrounds. We hope to continue to attract known speakers and writers like <a href="http://twofriarsandafool.blogspot.com/2011/02/preview-reverend-carol-howard-merritt.html">Rev. Carol Howard Merritt</a>, but we also want to provide a space for a host of other individuals who have ideas worth sharing.</div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: inherit;">We are very proud that in the first two months you are going to be hearing from a wide array of people we find fascinating. Here is just a taste:</div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbC3YQ_NbPnasa7faTHf2v-U9AXPL9ZBBoXG5gOEv3ntOOeS9OF1w2P42LVckjSBDVZ3vmKxyGdzLNxNJZ39Txo0Eteaj8vcZvD-Ozlms2fgFxeUrbyxgCtQzJUz1Nrtse3-oWKEkw7uMF/s1600/Lia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbC3YQ_NbPnasa7faTHf2v-U9AXPL9ZBBoXG5gOEv3ntOOeS9OF1w2P42LVckjSBDVZ3vmKxyGdzLNxNJZ39Txo0Eteaj8vcZvD-Ozlms2fgFxeUrbyxgCtQzJUz1Nrtse3-oWKEkw7uMF/s200/Lia.jpg" width="143" /></a><span id="internal-source-marker_0.43111030521337057" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Rev. Lia Scholl is an ordained minister and sex work ally. She is the pastor of the Richmond Mennonite Fellowship in Richmond, Virginia. She has worked with people in sex trade for nearly 10 years, most recently as the Client Advocacy Program Manager at HIPS (Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive) in Washington, DC. She is the founder and former executive director of Star Light Ministries, Inc. Originally from Alabama, she earned her M.Div. from Beeson Divinity School at Samford University. Lia blogs at </span><a href="http://www.roguereverend.com/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.roguereverend.com</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and can be found on twitter <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/RogueReverend">@roguereverend</a>.</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLxTVCjRqeXzWYJM64xmkq7JUuDHubd857-mwew1lxVCnquLXDrcEfS578djdoP512GcN9FkmIh0L4qAjiKm0YXs80KkWmt62po003Ax8hhQiYm61R5wQfddSbzrcGUTy9Z49Joe-lkeYx/s1600/Megan+Dosher.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGwfnaaVspZ1YRsFER9yovBoy81fn7Te8KebPAORdraRumtRH2KXGzMZGMqzhgI36VqN5j1iaOCNFnAfWVT4c6JsS0a7GaRRp7ujk-pgW1L5ToXhlfWVqeQch_akhAYiTptF6LbPm6u8I7/s1600/Greg+Love.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGwfnaaVspZ1YRsFER9yovBoy81fn7Te8KebPAORdraRumtRH2KXGzMZGMqzhgI36VqN5j1iaOCNFnAfWVT4c6JsS0a7GaRRp7ujk-pgW1L5ToXhlfWVqeQch_akhAYiTptF6LbPm6u8I7/s200/Greg+Love.jpg" width="116" /></a></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: inherit;">Rev. Dr. Gregory Anderson Love is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at San Francisco Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union. He is an ordained Presbyterian pastor. His first book "Love, Violence and the Cross: How the Nonviolent God Saves Us through the Cross of Christ" explores the atonement in a thorough, sensitive, and surprisingly playful way, opening new possibilities for our understanding of salvation.</div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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</div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLxTVCjRqeXzWYJM64xmkq7JUuDHubd857-mwew1lxVCnquLXDrcEfS578djdoP512GcN9FkmIh0L4qAjiKm0YXs80KkWmt62po003Ax8hhQiYm61R5wQfddSbzrcGUTy9Z49Joe-lkeYx/s1600/Megan+Dosher.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLxTVCjRqeXzWYJM64xmkq7JUuDHubd857-mwew1lxVCnquLXDrcEfS578djdoP512GcN9FkmIh0L4qAjiKm0YXs80KkWmt62po003Ax8hhQiYm61R5wQfddSbzrcGUTy9Z49Joe-lkeYx/s200/Megan+Dosher.JPG" style="cursor: move;" width="200" /></a>Megan Dosher is a 34-yr-old Presbyterian elder living and working in Oklahoma City, OK. She was born in Minnesota and raised both in Minnesota and Washington State. Megan now works as a half-time youth director at Santa Fe Presbyterian Church in Edmond, OK, and as a substitute teacher while she completes her ordination requirements to become a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the PC(USA). She loves volunteering, rabble-rousing, avocados and stripey socks.</div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUUk7Bz33HWVEqzo0KOoEL_i7_soz8lggMfWdLsbnHU0Ql59NGnfGVlngOmex0p5qWiaVulWlzPtytNwPoVvA6GnFzgNMPCvwsVupfcdD8J1rlaQmw2304YH_ic9jmp89l3Qv0Ko-RY7ab/s1600/Toby+Brown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUUk7Bz33HWVEqzo0KOoEL_i7_soz8lggMfWdLsbnHU0Ql59NGnfGVlngOmex0p5qWiaVulWlzPtytNwPoVvA6GnFzgNMPCvwsVupfcdD8J1rlaQmw2304YH_ic9jmp89l3Qv0Ko-RY7ab/s200/Toby+Brown.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"> Rev. Toby Brown is pastor of Jefferson Center Presbyterian Church, a blogger, and a self-described Classical Presbyterian. He can be found either smoking his pipe, remonstrating against liberal heretics, or here on Two Friars and a Fool doing both.</div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz7HaU7NK31P8SEIYIMr0yOIdGBCm5va-eYGA2o09Ap6licyP-Ijmqhrsnj-eRBs-U5mg341_u-xLU8SDD-U-Ez3tfk-R_xvvkbE0Lj6O2KI6T7RZEPl7rJWEjnjm7jJ0wgMfbEhWzO6eU/s1600/Heather+Reichgott.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz7HaU7NK31P8SEIYIMr0yOIdGBCm5va-eYGA2o09Ap6licyP-Ijmqhrsnj-eRBs-U5mg341_u-xLU8SDD-U-Ez3tfk-R_xvvkbE0Lj6O2KI6T7RZEPl7rJWEjnjm7jJ0wgMfbEhWzO6eU/s200/Heather+Reichgott.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="font-family: inherit;">Heather Reichgott is a mother, a wife, a PhD student, a candidate for ordination to ministry of the Word and Sacrament, a Ballet teacher, a pianist, and many other things. She blogs at <a href="http://voicesofsophia.wordpress.com/">Voices of Sophia</a> and has served in the past as a board member for More Light Presbyterians.</div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtgfF3968wsAtWS-U3h7umMvF5yFNg9szU2_qyy50sJtjGBp3t0SbDna4qWJDOueC_SSAFTd3kvUj3E9E5ZL-YvfrLyOXIXgJMRp4lLgCatDg5KDoXdl3PttwW5IaynBSn6kewWIiLdBpO/s1600/Michael+WW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtgfF3968wsAtWS-U3h7umMvF5yFNg9szU2_qyy50sJtjGBp3t0SbDna4qWJDOueC_SSAFTd3kvUj3E9E5ZL-YvfrLyOXIXgJMRp4lLgCatDg5KDoXdl3PttwW5IaynBSn6kewWIiLdBpO/s200/Michael+WW.jpg" width="159" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Michael L. Westmoreland-White, Ph.D. is a former academic theologian turned peace activist and educator. Married to the Rev. Kate Westmoreland-White, a Baptist minister who works at a Catholic charity for homeless people. He writes a theological blog called </span><a href="http://michael%20l.%20westmoreland-white,%20ph.d.%20%20former%20academic%20theologian%20turned%20peace%20activist%20and%20educator.%20married%20to%20the%20rev.%20kate%20westmoreland-white,%20a%20baptist%20minister%20who%20works%20at%20a%20catholic%20charity%20for%20homeless%20people%20%28st.%20vincent%20de%20paul%20society%29.%20%20this%20is%20a%20theological%20blog%20from%20an%20anabaptist,%20social%20gospel,%20and%20liberation%20perspective.%20%20i%20expect%20christians%20to%20be%20in%20permanent%20exile%20while%20the%20lord%20tarries%e2%80%93not%20primarily%20citizens%20of%20their%20home%20countries,%20but%20of%20the%20rule%20of%20god%20and%20the%20global%20church.%20%20i%20hope%20to%20interact%20with%20perspectives%20from%20around%20the%20world,%20although%20my%20own%20origin%20and%20social%20location%20remains%20in%20the%20u.s.%20south%20and%20among%20blue%20collar%20people./" style="font-family: inherit;">Pilgrim Pathways</a> from an Anabaptist, Social Gospel, and Liberation perspective. He expects Christians to be in permanent exile while the Lord tarries–not primarily citizens of their home countries, but of the Rule of God and the global church.Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-35476116444936341152011-02-24T08:26:00.000-08:002011-02-24T08:26:00.487-08:00Preview: Reverend Tim Carson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHrPinfX-ulJO3J1zfbG3vKw-KftMX48cI8hfXvGuBYM_TugsNjadEM6Fl3_ZT9oL_WvgwbGnSMkXDzgVU06CypuCNtnTcOH9W7yuqWMfsRvsAQFvQ7TZGi8sUiJdsMSOonZkkGoIzo1Y6/s1600/Tim.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHrPinfX-ulJO3J1zfbG3vKw-KftMX48cI8hfXvGuBYM_TugsNjadEM6Fl3_ZT9oL_WvgwbGnSMkXDzgVU06CypuCNtnTcOH9W7yuqWMfsRvsAQFvQ7TZGi8sUiJdsMSOonZkkGoIzo1Y6/s320/Tim.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Lest someone get the idea that the new <a href="http://www.twofriarsandafool.com/">Two Friars and a Fool</a> is going to be a Presbyterian thing we remind you that one-third of our merry band is Disciples of Christ. In our first month we will have a DoC, a Mennonite and a Baptist.<br />
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We are especially excited about the participation of Rev. Tim Carson. You can read some of his excellent ruminations at <a href="http://vitalwholeness.wordpress.com/">his own blog</a>, or see some of the ministry he is doing at <a href="http://www.broadwaychristian.net/">Broadway Christian Church</a>. He is a guy who speaks and writes with refreshing vigor and honesty.<br />
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We won't divulge yet, what his article is about, but we asked him for something provocative, and boy has he delivered. Stay tuned.Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-30337284409476735222011-02-21T07:25:00.000-08:002011-02-21T09:15:33.510-08:00Preview: Reverend Carol Howard Merritt<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGhZZMgjoRdT5WxXrVkOe0qHel7rxbd2bvMCG2pF0ixhCjR-4NNsAip58nOZGkHx3JLG6tg0GbNtk_R1R8QxgJQQhZcidVmPFlIofjdCbRDHbur9-WW6cMoGq7H1hofsYDwZnnyXx35xLh/s1600/CHM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGhZZMgjoRdT5WxXrVkOe0qHel7rxbd2bvMCG2pF0ixhCjR-4NNsAip58nOZGkHx3JLG6tg0GbNtk_R1R8QxgJQQhZcidVmPFlIofjdCbRDHbur9-WW6cMoGq7H1hofsYDwZnnyXx35xLh/s200/CHM.jpg" width="142" /></a></div>Our first month is starting with a bang on the new <a href="http://www.twofriarsandafool.com/">Two Friars and a Fool</a>. We will have a new guest every 3 days with video responses and moderated forum discussions for each one. We want to put out consistently thought provoking content, but more importantly host some great conversations.<br />
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One of the first month's contributors we are very excited about is Rev. Carol Howard Merritt. She is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tribal-Church-Ministering-Missing-Generation/dp/1566993474/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b">Tribal Church</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Reframing-Hope-Vital-Ministry-Generation/dp/1566993946/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_a">Reframing Hope</a>. She blogs at <a href="http://tribalchurch.org/">TribalChurch.org</a> and HuffPo and a few other spots. She is the co-host of <a href="http://godcomplexradio.com/">God Complex Radio</a> and somehow she fits in being pastor at Western Presbyterian Church in Washington D.C.<br />
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If you haven't been reading her stuff you've been missing out on some cogent, insightful analysis of where we have come, and where we are going as a church, like her most recent article about <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-howard-merritt/food-as-an-act-of-faith-h_b_824397.html?ref=tw">local food movements</a>. We can rectify this gross oversight in your education. We are going to be reviewing her most recent book and hosting a new article by Rev. Howard Merritt in March.Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-71538987711826176332011-02-18T06:25:00.000-08:002011-02-18T07:15:57.339-08:00Preview: the Right Reverend Landon WhitsittThe new <a href="http://www.twofriarsandafool.com/">Two Friars and A Fool</a> is going to play host to some awesome people bringing provocative ideas about church, theology, and life for us to debate. The very first contributor to our site will be the current Vice Moderator of the PC(USA), <a href="http://landonwhitsitt.com/">Rev. Landon Whitsitt</a>. He is, in our opinion, a refreshing voice well worth a listen to. He wrote the free e-book <a href="https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B92k-7skgj0wY2Q3OTUyNjAtMGZiMS00YzFhLWJmOGUtMmU5YTQ0MjExOTU2&hl=en">Open Source Gospel</a>, works with <a href="http://godcomplexradio.com/">God Complex Radio</a>, and is appearing in a bunch of other places as well. We're not going to reveal what he will be talking about when he comes to Two Friars and a Fool on March 1st, but here is one of his recent videos to get a taste:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="295" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xt0qa4baQF4?fs=1" width="480"></iframe>Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-12434437828006379542011-02-15T08:05:00.000-08:002011-02-15T08:05:01.026-08:00Virtual Theology PubThis site is just a collaborative blog, but we want to be <a href="http://www.twofriarsandafool.com/">so much more</a> to you. We aspire to be a <i>Virtual Theology Pub</i>.<br />
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A what?<br />
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We want to be a place where you come to hang out with people you like and have spirited, but friendly conversations about things that matter. To accomplish this we are moving away from the blog format where we spout our opinions and you read them (if you can be bothered). Instead we are soliciting the opinions of people we think are cool on subjects where we can get some traction for a good debate. We are going to be responding to the submissions of the aforementioned <i>cool people</i> with short videos designed to make you laugh, and think, and most importantly jump in with your own opinion into the forums.<br />
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Spread the word on your own blogs, on twitter, on facebook, or wherever you make your digital home. This is gonna be fun.Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-26555225770778663192011-02-12T08:52:00.000-08:002011-02-12T08:52:00.260-08:00Countdown to LaunchAs we've said before this blog was always just a temporary measure until we were able to unleash our true plan on an unsuspecting world.<br />
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<a href="http://www.twofriarsandafool.com/">Something big is coming</a>.<br />
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As of March 1st we will be directing all traffic to our new home. This blog will stay up for a short while as we figure out what we want to do with all the content here, but it will be a ghost town. <br />
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To those of you who have been loyal followers of us at this location: thank you. If you liked what was going on here, though, you are going to be blown away by the next step. It may be annoying to have to redo your links, and RSS feeds and what not, but it will be worth it. We promise.<br />
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Stay tuned in the coming days for previews about what we are up to and why you will soon be explaining to all of your friends what a virtual theology pub is.Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-57060982440919339122011-02-11T11:07:00.000-08:002011-02-11T11:49:15.217-08:00Myths Busted<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2BBb6C2x-HBv1HE_ra0ozhkT6DHFpOHu0-mQQOo91u9kk-Yr8fnjFvyXoAyNSvBwnhfmtwsnzS7UmghyphenhyphenBWNX4_0B3TnZSF9jmIPxIVRrPadKuqzs4j4Be4TcJkXU0ra3EmwRYkgCyN1p/s1600/protest-in-egypt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2BBb6C2x-HBv1HE_ra0ozhkT6DHFpOHu0-mQQOo91u9kk-Yr8fnjFvyXoAyNSvBwnhfmtwsnzS7UmghyphenhyphenBWNX4_0B3TnZSF9jmIPxIVRrPadKuqzs4j4Be4TcJkXU0ra3EmwRYkgCyN1p/s320/protest-in-egypt.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Mubarak resigned this morning.<br />
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The entire scenario playing out in Egypt is dispelling popular misconceptions so thoroughly that I hope we can lay some of these unfounded myths to rest forever:<br />
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<b>#1 - There is a Culture War on.</b><br />
Despite the best attempts of some the defining conflicts of our current age are not a continuation of the crusades. The fight is not between the Christian West and the Muslim Orient. Christians and Muslims have been protesting alongside each other in Egypt, and even protecting each other from sectarian violence. The enemy is political oppression, poverty, and injustice. It is an enemy which lives in the United States as well as the Middle East.<br />
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<b>#2 - Arabs are backwards and hate-filled.</b><br />
Egypt is the most populous Arab nation and is 90% Muslim. They have just managed to end 30 years of dictatorship without a war, in what was really a very sophisticated series of targeted protests. This is not a people who can't understand democracy. This is a people with a deep conviction in the authority of the people to hold their government accountable.<br />
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<b>#3 - America is a force for spreading Democracy</b><br />
If democracy is realized in Egypt it will be in spite vast amounts of money, diplomacy, weapons, and political influence expended by the U.S. to uphold a dictatorship there. We have been Mubarak's best friend and are even now working to keep Suleiman, a brutal enforcer, in power. Places in the Middle East where we have attempted to install democracy by force are stuck in a morass of perpetual Civil War. The best thing we can do for the spread of democracy at this point is get the hell out of the way.<br />
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<b>#4 - Dictatorships are stable</b><br />
Mubarak reigned for 30 years it is true. This gives the appearance of stability, but the cost to the region has been so immense and the failure of the regime seems so self-evident now that we must begin to realize that it is not in anyone's long term interest to continue to support oppressive governments. The arc of history bends toward justice. The powers and principalities are in their death throes. Everywhere justice and liberty will break out and take hold. It is past time we stopped putting short term gains ahead of long term peace.<br />
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<b>#5 - Nonviolence doesn't work</b><br />
A little more than two weeks of concerted nonviolent protests have brought down three decades of dictatorship. Who honestly believes an armed revolution or foreign military intervention would have been more effective? Conventional wisdom is that violent megalomaniacs like Mubarak cannot be reasoned with - that violence was our only option with Hitler, and Saddam, and now with Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-Il.<b> </b>The lesson we should take from Egypt is that peace is infinitely more powerful than war. One man on a cross broke the backbone of an empire. Even large scale geopolitical confrontations with entrenched militarily powerful and violent regimes can be won by unified nonviolent resistance.Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-18059493384636261752011-02-11T08:23:00.000-08:002011-02-11T08:24:11.877-08:00Confirmation Class Character Sheet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJfRcWm3VEpI52Vj_e5rILHNwvytpLATN3T-s_pl3U14-GtmHkbC-mHLSNrS2hpvDJ7RtIzFd4aEhNRGm6aNJ629PiMFpUP0WTJD79N-IEYeIMqYjVVq8_LDuxifb6ZerzT2skKP8toEv5/s1600/Confirmation+Character+Sheet+Comic+2010-2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJfRcWm3VEpI52Vj_e5rILHNwvytpLATN3T-s_pl3U14-GtmHkbC-mHLSNrS2hpvDJ7RtIzFd4aEhNRGm6aNJ629PiMFpUP0WTJD79N-IEYeIMqYjVVq8_LDuxifb6ZerzT2skKP8toEv5/s640/Confirmation+Character+Sheet+Comic+2010-2011.jpg" width="492" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Trying to do something new and interesting (hopefully) with the confirmation class. We're going to talk about gifts of the spirit, and I used <a href="http://plasq.com/products/comiclife/win">Comic Life</a> to put together a little character sheet for the kids to fill out. The idea is to spark a conversation about the spiritual gifts described in the three main NT lists as well as turn us to thinking about which gifts we have, which we want to develop, and which we just wonder about.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I tried to change all of the spiritual gifts listed into I-statements that the kids can either identify with or not. I hope this goes well. The idea is just to jump-start talk about spiritual gifts, and to connect the lists in the Bible with what we do, or don't do, every day.</div><br />
Anybody reading this brave enough to post your scores in the comments thread?<br />
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This is really a rudimentary sheet - the software is more versatile than this, but I don't have all that long to learn how to use it better. I got the idea from <a href="http://ruthlessdiastemagames.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/a-character-sheet-for-every-student-step-two-of-gaming-the-classroom/">Pete Figtree</a> using Comic Life for his syllabus and making character sheets for all of his high school English students.<img src="file:///C:/Users/Doug/Desktop/Gifts%20of%20the%20Spirit%20for%20Confrimation%202010-2011/pages/Page_1.jpg" /><img src="file:///C:/Users/Doug/Desktop/Gifts%20of%20the%20Spirit%20for%20Confrimation%202010-2011/pages/Page_1.jpg" /> What he came up with is more of an example of what you can do with the software, which is free for 30 days, and based on its potential, may end up being something I pay to register.Douglas Underhillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215736448645573566noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-80839532307747758972011-02-09T12:50:00.000-08:002011-02-09T12:50:41.007-08:00Everything Is About to Change<a href="http://www.twofriarsandafool.com/">Check it out</a>.Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-14272809691152017012011-02-07T09:02:00.001-08:002011-02-07T09:20:44.411-08:00Commanded and Enabled<span style="font-style:italic;">Here is the text of sermon I preached at Broadway Christian Church on Matthew 5:13-20. I hardly ever stick exactly to my manuscript but this is what I have to offer.</span><br /><br /> <blockquote> 13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.<br /><br /> 14 “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.<br /><br /> 17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 Truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.</blockquote><br /><br />I just want to begin by pointing out the irony of our scripture passage on salt when we just had the “snow-pocalypse.” Let me say this week I have been extra thankful for the truckloads of salt that have come into Columbia! I certainly used my share shoveling out my long driveway. As Terri likes to say… if I could add any text to the bible it would be that “Jesus laughed.”<br /><br />This morning’s text expands on what we learn about the call to discipleship known as the Beatitudes in the first 12 verses of this chapter in Matthew and our verses sit as the middle transitional passage in the Sermon on the Mount. It sits between Jesus’ call for his disciples and the later ethical teachings. While we don’t have time to go into all of it this morning, it is important to set the context. Arguably this text and the whole of the Sermon on the Mount can be considered the very heart of Matthew’s gospel. The Sermon on the Mount is a short sermon, by relative standards, but it is some of the most brilliant and inspiring passages in all of scripture.<br /><br />Our verses this morning are no different, Jesus continues his sermon with our two metaphors to describe and prescribe who his followers are and what they are to do for and in the world. This is the point where we preachers like to say he’s landing the plane, he’s bringing home the point. So after presenting the eight Beatitudes, Jesus launches into the heart of his sermon by making these analogies: that his followers are to be like salt and light. These are interesting choices, and both have implications for the implementation of mission and pastoral ministry.<br /><br />The first metaphor, Jesus calls his disciples the “salt of the world,” suggesting that we have a distinctive capacity to elicit goodness on the earth. Like salt, which is used to alter or enhance the taste of food (and, yes, even melt icy sidewalks). Salt alters the world around it; it brings alive what would otherwise seem tasteless and bland. In the first century it helped preserve food, it was even used as currency (hence worth your weight in salt). <br /><br />Jesus is making the point that if we live out the Beatitudes - becoming peacemakers, being merciful, pure in heart, those who care of the meek, dispossessed, ones caring for those who suffer loss, seeking to do justice -- to put it in the context of last weeks text those who act justly, love kindness, to walk humbly with their God – THEN we will have the capacity shift the world around us, to enhance the very flavor of goodness. Like my college Derrick Weston says, “We're the seasoning that brings out God-flavors.”<br /><br />But then Jesus shifts into talking about salt that looses its saltiness…He offers us a challenge. This is a challenge to Israel to be Israel (his original audience), and it is a challenge for us as Christians to be Christ-like. He is both affirming the individual person and challenging the person to become more. Jesus accepted the rich young man, but challenged him to give away his possessions. He accepted the woman caught in adultery, and then instructed her to go and sin no more. He both manages to uphold the person’s dignity, regardless of circumstance, while inviting behavioral change towards a better way of life. Not an easier way of life, but a better way. His first metaphor here is no different.<br /><br />His second metaphor is, “You are the light of the world,” where he invites us to consider the role of the disciples as a gathered community. Light enables us to see things, it is color, it helps vegetation grow, it provides solar power for electricity, and can even be focused into a laser. We are being called to be the light that brings out the God-colors, to enable diversity (giving things color), to nurture a healthy eco-friendly world (helping vegetation grow), and to even restore or repair that which needs mending (by use of a laser perhaps). This is what will make us the light of the world. <br /><br />Regardless of the size of the light, even a dim one can bring light to darkness, to offer wholeness in a fractured world. The light is the light of the gospel, and it draws people to its warmth and radiance. This mission has been primary, from the very beginning of scripture, throughout every age. William Temple said, “The church is the only organization on earth that exists for those who are not its members.” In order for the light to be seen, we must be willing to go where the darkness exists, to engage and walk through it, trusting that the light will overcome it. <br /><br />But we know that darkness, and brokenness does not exist only outside these walls, but within ourselves. We must be willing to seek what Parker Palmer calls “the dark night of the soul.” We must be prepared to see and read our inner landscape. While this is never easy, it is essential. We cannot bring the light of Christ to others if we are unaware of where that light needs to shine in our own hearts. We do not need to banish all darkness inside us, that is too difficult a task for any, but we must understand our darkness, and even because of it, reach out beyond ourselves.<br /><br />These two metaphors, of salt and light, make me think of Psalm 34 "Taste and see that the Lord is good." As verses 17-20 remind us, it is because of who Jesus is and how he understands his mission that his disciples individually and collectively are enabled to be salt and light. <br /><br />Jesus goes on to declare to his newly commissioned disciples and followers that he has not come to abolish the law or the prophets. But he claims his place in God’s history of the liberation of and covenant with God’s chosen people. He aligns himself with the ever-expanding trajectory of God. By so doing, he does not dismiss the Judean tradition but rather speaks of it being fulfilled. Here we can begin to see Jesus aligning himself with the essence of a covenantal God who continually pursues his creation; from the first moment of creation itself, through the Abrahamic covenant, leading his people out of exiles (on multiple occasions), to the prophets social criticisms, to Jesus proclaiming the kingdom of God is at hand, to the early church meeting the needs in their midst, to our day in those seeking equality for all people. To Matthew, “to fulfill” was an eschatological category to see that God was already at work in the world. Jesus was telling Israel and his disciples to read Torah no longer in the context of sin, but in the context of the kingdom. Now that the reign of God was being inaugurated, the measure was no longer human pettiness or brokenness, but the abundance of God’s righteousness. <br /><br />The very righteousness of God that flows into Jesus and, in turn, is the ground of Jesus’ relationship with his disciples, with us. Jesus’ followers are both commanded and enabled to surpass conventional and institutional practices, exceeding even what we perceive as being the most gracious, most loving gestures we can imagine! Jesus is proclaiming that as his followers, as Salt and Light in the world, we can and should become participants in transforming the world into God’s vision. The community of Christ is formed while engaging in this mission together.<br /><br />Let me put it another way: this is your mission, if you choose to accept it; to venture forth, to risk it all, to push passionately beyond our own comprehension of the righteousness, of the commandments, of the prophets, of even the gospels to extend love beyond ourselves. For God is always bigger than we can fathom.<br /><br />But to be honest this makes me worry. It makes me worry because first of all it’s hard, these things Jesus preaches about on the Sermon on the Mount are some of the most challenging things to actually do, anywhere. <br /><br />But these days it makes me even worried for another reason. As some of you already know, Julia and I are expecting a baby. And honestly being on the verge of becoming a father (while something I have looked forward too) calls to radical discipleship scare me even more. It scares me because my son or daughter may feel called because of their faith in Christ to leave the comforts of our home and venture out into the danger, crazy upside down world and do something pretty much insane. Like the Coptic Christians in Egypt that I’ve been reading about who are literally putting their lives in harms way to protect Muslim protesters. As a future parent that scares the ---- out of me, both with joy that my child might so concretely live their faith, but also with fear that my child might get hurt doing something so brave and bold as that.<br /><br />The thing is this hard part is what Jesus seems to be asking of us. Jesus seems to be proclaiming in this text that if we don’t live into these characteristics of the Beatitudes and lack the passion for justice and living into God’s reordering of human life, then we, in effect, break the covenantal relationship. That if we do not embrace our enemies, if we do not bless the poor, then Jesus says here that we will “never enter the kingdom of heaven.”<br /><br />In a very important sense we are being commanded and enabled to live into the reordering of humanity, society, family structures, into the full embrace of a self-giving all loving God. To fulfill the law and the prophets is to bring their purpose to complete expression in everyday community. And that will mean risk, and making ourselves vulnerable, and letting go of some of the control over the way we think something should turn out (despite my new found fears). <br /><br />I think this tension (of safety and risk) is exactly what Jesus had in mind when he offered these two metaphors. Salt and light both transform their worlds. I want to close with this story that Tim posted on his blog from our very own, Lynelle Phillips who is on faculty at the University of Missouri in Public Health. It’s an excerpt from her journal about taking a recent trip with a group of nursing students to Cape Coast, Ghana. <br /><br />The goal of the trip was to expose nursing students to urgent dimensions of public health in a 3rd world context, to participate in an international immersion experience and to offer some help in public health education and HIV screenings in particular villages. They were also able to enjoy places of local history and cultural richness.<br /><br />On one day the students visited the historical locations of the transatlantic slave trade. This included a slave camp and the path the captured slaves took down to a stream for their last bath and last drink of stream water before they were confined in the dungeons of Cape Coast, where they languished for weeks before being shipped long distances to be sold.<br /><br />There were four African American young women among the students and for them this visit had special poignancy. This was the departure point of the ancestors and the remains of many were buried directly beneath their feet. As the group stood on the banks of the last-drink-stream contemplating all this Lynelle writes in her journal:<br /><br />Local African women appeared out of the woods as if by magic. They took our African American women by the hand and led them one-by-one into the creek to let the cool water soothe their feet and souls. The good Lord sent them angels this morning.<br /><br />Somehow these wise mentor women, whoever they were, took these women by the hand and led them to the stream of their ancestors. They were baptized in the meaning of it all. And after they came out of the waters, without so much as a word, the strange visitors disappeared into the forest from whence they had come.<br /><br />Lynelle ends her journal with a reflection on mission trips, what really happens, and prayer. I share it with you now:<br /><br />“It is the secret riddle of all mission trips – this paradox of giving morphing into receiving. Perhaps it’s God’s little practical joke on modern humanity. On the one hand we privileged Americans are driven to sign on, undergo injections and forfeit our vacation. We are compelled to help. We want to make that difference, even if it is only one random dribble off the hillside…yet in a gradual, puzzling twist of fortune, we become the recipient. What sets off to be a practical journey of service mysteriously winds up as our own spiritual enlightenment. We dine on the love and warmth and character of those we hope to serve. We magically transform from master to servant, from giver to receiver.<br /><br />I sit and ponder winter/spring, servant/master, giver/receiver … in my place of confused wonderment. Oh my dear Lord, what is your calling for me? Wild geese honk their friendly greeting overhead. Looking down, I notice my hands are more beautiful when intertwined together, their left-right/giver-receiver distinctions fade as they unify in prayer. Oh…maybe that’s it…”<br /><br />Let us pray.Nick Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03265851893310000081noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-29394886954130521452011-02-07T07:43:00.000-08:002011-02-08T08:29:53.712-08:00Reflection: We Can Haz Elderz?<div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Here are my notes from yesterday's sermon. Not counting what happens when talking in the moment, embellishing and examples and cutting things at the last minute and so on, this is pretty much what I said.</i></span></span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><i> </i></span></span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>There is an italic part in the middle, added at the last minute based on a good conversation I had with a colleague Saturday night. I put it in italics so I could decide, in the moment, whether I would use it. I decided to use it - it introduced some ideas I wanted to introduce, and said something connected to what I was talking about (or so I thought). I try to mention something at least a half-dozen times in various venues before I expect anyone to address it with me.</i></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><i> </i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Oh, and the title doesn't mean anything - it was just my working title. In the bulletin it just said REFLECTION.</i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><i> </i></span></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ISAIAH 58:1-12</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1 Shout out, do not hold back! </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Lift up your voice like a trumpet! </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Announce to my people their rebellion, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to the house of Jacob their sins. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2 Yet day after day they seek me </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and delight to know my ways, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> they ask of me righteous judgments, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> they delight to draw near to God. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3 “Why do we fast, but you do not see? </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and oppress all your workers. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and to strike with a wicked fist. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Such fasting as you do today </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> will not make your voice heard on high. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">5 Is such the fast that I choose, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> a day to humble oneself? </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Will you call this a fast, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> a day acceptable to the LORD?</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">6 Is not this the fast that I choose: </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to loose the bonds of injustice, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to undo the thongs of the yoke, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to let the oppressed go free, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and to break every yoke? </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and bring the homeless poor into your house; </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> when you see the naked, to cover them, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and not to hide yourself from your own kin? </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and your healing shall spring up quickly; </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> your vindicator shall go before you, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9 Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> If you remove the yoke from among you, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">10 if you offer your food to the hungry </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> then your light shall rise in the darkness </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and your gloom be like the noonday. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">11 The LORD will guide you continually, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and satisfy your needs in parched places, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and make your bones strong; </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and you shall be like a watered garden, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> like a spring of water, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> whose waters never fail. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> you shall be called the repairer of the breach, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the restorer of streets to live in.</span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prayer</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I finally decided to go to seminary, the last straw was reading Isaiah 58. It’s one of my favorite passages in the entire Bible. It touched me because, at the time, I liked a lot about Christianity...except for the religion part. If we could just do Christianity, but not have churches, I thought that would probably be the way to go. I felt acutely how church got in the way of following Jesus, of being true disciples.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Isaiah 58 is all about the difference between religion on the one hand and following God on the other. It’s easy to confuse the two, but they are not at all the same thing. (To be clear about now, I think it is easier to follow Jesus in a church committed to that - but it is a lot harder in a church that is committed to...the church)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first job of an Elder is to follow Jesus. This comes before the best interests of the church, before finances, before meetings, before any of these things. The first job of an Elder is following Jesus.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I had a chance to talk to Peter a little bit earlier this week. We were going through the Book of Order, and what it has to say about the call of an Elder. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ask: what is it that a Christian does? What is a Christian’s job? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> [some answers: to share the good news of Jesus’ life, to live a Christ-like life, to open our hearts to God’s Spirit, to have a personal relationship with Jesus]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is possible to sum it up pretty briefly: there are things which all Christians are called to do - for an Elder, those things are your job. By accepting this call, by saying yes to it, you are saying that you will take as your special responsibility following Jesus, seeking to become more like him in every way. You will do this first and most. You will set an example for the congregation that you serve. (list answers they gave to the question)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In contrast to following Jesus, there is church; there is religion. It is Jesus who calls people, and it can be church that drives them away. You come to church, maybe excited about following Jesus, but suddenly you’re caught up in someone’s political agenda, or you’re embroiled in gossiping, or you spend all of your time worrying and working just to maintain what the church has done in the past. You drift off, or storm out, or whatever, because whatever following Jesus is, this ain’t it.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Or maybe it isn’t so dramatic - it is Jesus who calls people, and it is church that somehow convinces them that their calling (of God the creator of the universe; the risen Christ, the HS in us like a fire) amounts to attending worship once a week and maybe volunteering now and then, or making a donation. It’s underwhelming. You read the prophets; you read what he says in the Gospels, about giving up your whole live in order to find it, about moving mountains, and it doesn’t compare with what you experience in the church building.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The good news is, though, that this is our church - your church. We have a choice. We all have the same job - following Jesus. I have the absurd, luxurious privilege of being able to try to do that as a full-time job. This means that I have the easiest job in this room - and I mean that. My job is easy. I share that job with the Elders, and we share that job with all of you, that job doing things like (list their examples again)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That isn’t to say that there aren’t challenges. One of the challenges that come up among Elders is remaining together when we disagree - even when we disagree strongly. Fair warning - I am not going to avoid talking about divisive issues. Avoiding conflict is poison for a community, and I am not here to poison anyone, even though this will require periodically letting people feel uncomfortable; periodically being uncomfortable, even angry, myself.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few days, a few dozen male pastors of some large Presbyterian churches wrote an open letter to the Presbyterian church as a whole. In that letter they talked about one issue that has been divisive in the denomination for almost 40 years now - that of gay ordination, and the connected issue of gay marriage. In this letter, they described our system as broken, our disagreements as entrenched, and as a solution, they laid out a plan to pull away from involvement in the denomination, and to form their own sub-groups, composed only of those people who agreed with them.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My thought was how frustrating and saddening this letter was. This is exactly what kills a community - breaking apart into tiny enclaves where we all are sure that no one will ever challenge us, or lead us to grow or change. We become theologically fossilized, with rocks instead of bones, unable to move - sad, dead things. What this letter, written by some stand-out names in the denomination, says is that they are no longer willing to work with anyone who disagrees with them.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They are no longer willing to be a community.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The test of love is always conflict. If you say you love someone, but you’re not willing to disagree with them, and talk about your disagreement, and remain with them, then is that really love at all? The test of community is the same.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">***</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This Thursday I was at a Presbytery training session, looking at factors that contribute to long-term church health. I learned a lot that was helpful. I got into a conversation with another pastor who is looking at retirement in the next few years. He said to me something like “Why would anyone ever want to do this”, meaning pastoral ministry. Honestly, this kind of question frustrates me. As calmly as I could, I asked “Would you rather be a pastor, or a cashier at Wal-Mart? Which is easier, being a pastor or a used car salesman? We get to do meaningful things all the time. But try to make being a cashier meaningful. It’s possible, but it’s a lot harder.” He had to admit - of the jobs I listed, he would still choose pastor.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some pastors like to pretend that their job is really hard - I am not one of them. I’ve had hard jobs. Right now, I have the easiest job in this room.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In a similar way, the job of Elder can sound like a hard job. You have to go to meetings, and learn to use Robert’s Rules of Order, and read the Book of Order and the Book of Confessions, and make hard decisions, and have long discussions and even arguments.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Or, it could be like this. You get to help show us how to follow Jesus. And when you do, when you take risks, when you stick your neck out, when you take a stand for what’s right, Isaiah 58 says that God is backing you up. Listen again to what Isaiah says:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">11 The LORD will guide you continually, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and satisfy your needs in parched places, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and make your bones strong; </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and you shall be like a watered garden, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> like a spring of water, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> whose waters never fail. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> you shall be called the repairer of the breach, </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the restorer of streets to live in.</span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope that we find ways, through this church, to more closely follow Jesus. I hope we find ways, through this church, to follow God, and to go out and to extinguish violence, and to raise up the lowly, and fight on the side of the oppressed, and to do justice, to show mercy - to do those things that God has always called people to do.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope we find ways to do this through the church - I bet you that we can, in fact, and that we will. But the priority is to follow Jesus; the priority is to do those things that Isaiah is talking about. That is my calling, that is your calling as Elders, that is the calling of every single person in this room, and every person who will ever come into this room, and every person who comes to know and trust the Lord.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We can look at this like it is the hardest job, or like it is the easiest and most wonderful job, like it is the only job worth doing.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Praise hymn]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Ordination/installation of Elders]</span></div>Douglas Underhillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215736448645573566noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-41340018523162608832011-01-30T11:26:00.000-08:002011-01-30T11:27:05.333-08:00Sermon Notes: State of the Church Address<div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.28448270028457046" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/nlt/1-corinthians/passage.aspx?q=1%20corinthians+1:18-28">1 Corinthians 1:18-28</a></b></span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.28448270028457046" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.28448270028457046" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Dalton Presbyterian Church, 1/30/11</i></span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.28448270028457046" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i> </i></span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.28448270028457046" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>***</i></span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.28448270028457046" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.28448270028457046" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Show of hands: who has seen or heard Obama’s State of the Union address?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yeah, this will be nowhere near that good. Not even Joe Biden good. But I felt like the timing was right to try something - Elder retreat, talking about the present and future of the church lately.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So because I am not a famous public speaker, I’ll need some prayers.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">::pray::</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">State of the Church address</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks to leadership (stand, clap)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Remember the empty seats, and those who cannot be with us because of physical limitations or health (Dan Rudy, Susanna Amstutz, Jodi Smith)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thankful for differences - we’re diverse (not ethnically - a shimmering rainbow of Caucasian!) in beliefs and politics. Sometimes this comes out as fear to delve into divisive issues - but I see this as a strength, that we can come together even though we don’t agree on every line-item of a given creed.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Commonalities and continuity; this church, in one form or another, has been here a loooong time. 200 odd years. From back when the flag didn’t nearly have so many stars. In a couple years, we might want to think about doing something for our bicentennial. That’s a long time. Imagine all those saints who came before us - just in this little place in the world.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">History - we’ve known times of flourishing, we’ve also known schism - the split 25 years ago that is still fresh for some of us - a split that is still felt now (I see it impact our live and ministry on an almost-weekly basis - it sneaks it’s way into other issues); and thru it all tremendous change. We are inheritors, but the church now is almost nothing like it was 50 years ago; even less 100 years ago, or 150. We’re not suddenly talking about change. We’re simply continuing to change.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In recent memory, though, the world has moved. The world always moves faster than the church - Facebook killing the church? - Evangelicalism and conservative politics - Christianity is a third-world movement, and will be for generations to come. Even if we’ve tried to stand still, the ground has moved out from under us.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The state of the church is always this</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - the world has moved, and we must be part of it. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The state of the church is always this</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - God has remained still, and we must move the world.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">THis church doesn’t just have a past - we’ve also got a future. We are not like any other church, and we are planted here for a reason, no less now than our predecessors were 200 years ago. We are called to flourish; we are called to live out our passion; we all have a mission. Our calling hasn’t changed - it’s just that we have to figure out how to follow God out into the world. The way we do church will not be the way we’ve done church before. Until we are perfected, until Kingdom come, we are not finished.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We have this future, but I cannot hand it to you. I cannot go get it and bring it back. It isn’t going to land in our laps. It is possible to run away from our calling. God is alive and moving in our lives, alive and moving in the world outside these doors - but can ignore that if we want.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This future will not be made clear to us through wisdom - we read that in 1 Corinthians. If we are looking for a wise, well-considered path, that won’t quite get us to God. If we are careful and deliberate and discerning - that won’t quite cut it. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We continue to read, in 1 Corinthians, that this future won’t even come by way of signs and miracles! If we are waiting for a miracle, even if we experienced a miracle, a sign, here and now, that wouldn’t quite get us to God. That’s a load off of my shoulders, because I’ve got no miracles.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What will move us into the future is...foolishness - the foolishness of trusting a God we cannot see, trusting a savior who died on a cross, trusting in our own efforts when we know how flawed we are, trusting in the Holy Spirit to strengthen us when we cannot do one more thing. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our hope is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is life to those who are alive with God. If we look ahead with the mindset that we are dying, God’s future for us will look like nonsense.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If, however, we are able to become fools, to cultivate our inner foolishness, then it’ll all make sense. We’re called to be foolish, and seek God’s wisdom - we are called to be weak, and trust in God’s strength - we are called to be regular folks, and let God be the one who grants us our status.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But these are all just words. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I thought about this passage, and about the Elder retreat we had yesterday. We talked about a lot of things - including what we thought we as a church, and the Elders in particular, were good at. What we care about most. Where we should be headed.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And this is where a President would outline the government initiatives and programs that would bring us into the bright future. I’m not a President, though. Being a pastor is quite different from being President. I can’t really make much happen on my own. In light of that point of divergence...</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve been thinking about what I am called to do. What it is that I am good at. What I care about. What am I supposed to do, in light of this reading, in light of our calling, in light of where we are, who we are. Who I am. I don’t want to speak for anyone else.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I will speak for myself.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I like the idea of being a Fool. Some of the astute and observant among may have noticed - I am a fool. I am a goofball. My head is in the clouds. I am a dreamer. I log more time in my own imagination than I do in this “real world” everyone keeps telling me about. Sometimes this is a strength, and sometimes it is a weakness. Part of me is happy to read that we are called to foolishness.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t have any miracles up my sleeves, and I am only occasionally wise - but a fool provokes. I will therefore throw down a challenge. I will call you out, here and now, you, and everyone who isn’t here this morning, and everyone we can convince to come through those doors.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My challenge isn’t to dare you to sit in the front few rows of the church - even though it is warmer up here, and a lot easier to hear. I’m afraid what I have in mind is even worse. (and let me take a moment to honor the courage of the intrepid few who braved the front row this morning)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This morning, I’m going to use a dirty word in church. I want you to say this dirty word with me. Ready? </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Evangelism”. Say it with me: “Evangelism”. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We had our Elder retreat, and do you know what the Elders chose as the highest priority for the church going forward? Evangelism. So I am doing something tremendously foolish. I am calling upon an aging, shrinking Presbyterian congregation to join me in becoming evangelists.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like fools, like Paul and the first apostles, we are called to proclaim Christ. Whether we like it or not. Whether it seems wise or not. With or without miracles. Whether we feel strong enough or not.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The state of the church is always this</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - we are chosen by God, we are called for ministry, and our future is present with us right now. You remember what Jesus was saying in the hills of Galilee in our reading last week? The Kingdom of God is at hand.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The state of the church is always this</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - we are the kingdom of God. And we are called to carry this good news in our hearts, in our lives, and out into the world.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m not going to drop this evangelism thing. If you ignore it, it won’t go away.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This morning, I dare you to believe it.</span></div>Douglas Underhillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215736448645573566noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-41886741530865641612011-01-28T10:23:00.000-08:002011-01-28T10:23:00.336-08:00PresbyMEME: Why I am voting yes on 10-A<b>Name, City, State</b><br />
Aric Clark, Fort Morgan, CO<br />
<br />
<b>Twitter and Facebook profiles</b><br />
Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/aricclark">@aricclark</a><br />
Facebook: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1285865919&ref=hpbday&pub=2386512837#%21/profile.php?id=642536146">Aric Clark</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Two-Friars-and-a-Fool/116754331714300">Two Friars and A Fool</a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=281361964937"></a><br />
<b>Presbytery and 10a voting date</b><br />
<a href="http://www.plainsandpeaks.org/">Presbytery of Plains and Peaks</a>, May 7th 2011<br />
<br />
<b>Reason ONE that you are voting "yes" on 10a is...</b><br />
Close friends of mine who are already ordained, but closeted, some who are ordained and open about their homosexuality, and others who are seeking ordination, but currently prevented by our polity have proven to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Holy Spirit is working in and through LGBTQ persons as much as through any heterosexual and it is time the Church moved past our prejudices. This is merely the next step in our continual journey toward a fuller understanding of God's kingdom. One day we will have a Church that reflects the radical, profligate grace of Jesus Christ.<br />
<br />
<b>Reason TWO that you are voting "yes" on 10a is...</b><br />
This is core Presbyterian polity. Where people of good intent and rational thinking disagree it is vital that we permit freedom of conscience. It is vital that we not rob our presbyteries of their right to be the ordaining body by turning our constitutional document into a rulebook and inserting personal political agendas into what should be ongoing theological conversations. Amendment 10-A does not make explicit statement regarding the ability or inability of any individual to be ordained based on arbitrary criteria. Instead it puts the responsibility and the authority squarely on the shoulders of the ordaining body where it should be.<br />
<br />
<b>Reason THREE that you are voting "yes" on 10a is...</b><br />
I can't limit this list to three reasons. Here are <a href="http://twofriarsandafool.blogspot.com/2010/10/lgbtq-ordination-resource.html">many more</a>. There simply aren't any good reasons to vote against 10-A.<br />
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<b>What are your greatest hopes for the 10a debate that will take place on the floor of your Presbytery?</b><br />
I hope we conduct ourselves with humility, patience, and love, and I hope justice carries the day.<br />
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<b>How would you respond to those that say that if we pass 10a individuals and congregations will leave the PC(USA)?</b><br />
<br />
I would say that we can't be held hostage by those petty enough to threaten to take their toys and go home if we don't play the game their way. Those who cannot worship with their fellow presbyterians if we permit freedom of conscience on this issue have my blessings to depart.<br />
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<b>What should the Presbyterian Church focus on after Amendment 10a passes?</b><br />
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The most urgent issue by far is our theological approach to violence. I would like to see the PC(USA) begin the process of becoming a Peace Church. I would like to see GA appoint a commission to study scripture and the confessions and present a paper to a future GA for adoption as an authoritative interpretation stating that being Christian and Reformed entails gospel nonviolence, and urging peaceful resistance to militarism in our society.<br />
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A close second to the issue of violence is our strategy for church planting in the PC(USA). I'd like to see us begin planting churches much more aggressively, using the wealth of young talent we have coming out of our seminaries. I would recommend setting up a grant program where recent seminary graduates can receive two years part-time salary and be ordained to an innovative ministry they design and initiate. Instead of trying a dozen expensive NCD's nationwide next year, lets plant 300 cheap ministries and see which ones take root.<br />
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<b>How does your understanding of Scripture frame your position on 10a?</b><br />
Scripture is constantly woven into my views on everything like themes in a symphony. By immersing myself in it, my imagination is shaped by it and scriptural ideas appear even unintentionally in my thought stream. On 10-A in particular the Biblical trajectory of God's inclusive love has been ever expanding. God's servants have always been challenged not by who God denies or rejects, but like Jonah by who God embraces. To understand God means to have your mind changed to understand the people you previously regarded as unclean, undesirable, "other" as the objects of God's affection. Putting on the mind of Christ means learning to love and accept those who God loves and accepts.<br />
<ol></ol>Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-5083228714422330972011-01-18T02:10:00.000-08:002011-01-18T11:46:44.276-08:00PresbyMEME: Why I Am Voting Yes on 10A<b>Name, City, State</b><br />
Douglas Hagler, Dalton, OH<br />
<br />
<b>Twitter and Facebook profiles</b><br />
Twitter: @robosnake<br />
Facebook: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=848645164">Douglas Hagler</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Two-Friars-and-a-Fool/116754331714300">Two Friars and A Fool</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=281361964937">Dalton Presbyterian Church</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=101792223207465">Robosnake Games</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=119539174764004">The Stand-Up Comedian Party</a><br />
<br />
<b>Presbytery and 10a voting date</b><br />
<a href="http://www.mvpjourneyingwithjesus.org/article192996c4178701.htm">Muskingum Valley Presbytery; March 12, 2011</a><br />
<br />
<b>Reason ONE that you are voting "yes" on 10a is...</b><br />
Instead of merely ONE reason, I offer...<a href="http://twofriarsandafool.blogspot.com/2010/10/lgbtq-ordination-resource.html">over two dozen good reasons why everyone should vote "yes" on 10a</a>. After writing and expanding upon each of those, it's actually kind of hard to come up with more. Let's see.<br />
<br />
<b>Reason TWO that you are voting "yes" on 10a is...</b><br />
The arguments against 10a are founded in theology and modes of interpretation I reject, including but not limited to: complementarianism, literalism, fundamentalism, and what I want to call "<b>hypocriticalism</b>", or "<b>the hypoCritical method</b>", whereby some conservative Biblical interpreters pretend they are not preferencing some parts of scripture over others, but rather pretend there is a singular "Biblical position" that we need only align ourselves with.<br />
<br />
<b>Reason THREE that you are voting "yes" on 10a is...</b><br />
My mom is queer, and an ordained PC(USA) pastor. You talkin' about my momma? I'm-a slap you. [1]<br />
<br />
<b>What are your greatest hopes for the 10a debate that will take place on the floor of your Presbytery?</b><br />
I am a coward, so I simply hope that no one yells at me, or at each other for that matter. I hope that the justice and equality viewpoint, which is a minority viewpoint in my presbytery, will not lead people who know nothing else about me to think ill of me, or glare at me, or that kind of thing. Basically, pessimism, cowardice and selfishness guide my hopes, such as they are. I would like to see some movement from 30% in favor of justice and equality to some higher proportion when the vote finally comes down. I hope not to hear anyone compare LGBTQ persons to pedophiles, drug addicts, people who have sex with animals, or people who are incestuous.<br />
<br />
I hope I don't blow my lid, particularly in the event that people actually make those false and obnoxious comparisons, in public where I can hear them.<br />
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<b>How would you respond to those that say that if we pass 10a individuals and congregations will leave the PC(USA)?</b><br />
To put it bluntly - no one is forcing any congregation to stay. If justice for LGBTQ persons is too much to stomach for some congregations, then so be it. I'd rather they stayed and saw our LGBTQ sisters and brothers as human beings worthy of dignity and called by God to serve in ministry. Failing that, if they simply must leave, then they'll leave. I'm sure congregations left when we started ordaining women as well. I'm sure congregations got angry when we stopped speaking out against interracial marriages. Remember when some Presbyteries said it wasn't ok to own slaves? A lot of congregations left over that too. If this is the deal-breaker for some congregations, then that's what it is. That has no bearing whatsoever on whether this is the right thing to do - and it is the right thing. In 50 years when the culture has sea-changed on this issue, we'll be hearing about evangelical mega-churches with burgeoning pro-LGBTQ outreach programs, just like we're suddenly hearing more about environmentalism and social justice from them now.<br />
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<b>What should the Presbyterian Church focus on after Amendment 10a passes?</b><br />
Becoming a committed peace church and regularly engaging in active, participatory nonviolent direct action. While Jesus is silent on homosexuality, he is very clear that his disciples must never, under any circumstances, use violence. Before it was co-opted by Empire, the Church was a peace Church. We will always be the slaves of Empire until we return to Jesus' original way of (among other things) radical nonviolence.<br />
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<b>How does your understanding of Scripture frame your position on 10a?</b><br />
Scripture is an ancient collection of human documents, written by people who were inspired by their faith and experiences to write a wide variety of things. It didn't descend on a cloud in King James English; it wasn't beamed into the writers' brains; God wasn't working them like puppets. Human beings wrote it, and whatever anyone says, human beings are left to interpret it. We pray and hope for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our own interpretation and thinking. <br />
<br />
It is a messy process, and it leads to a situation where the Church has been on the wrong side almost as much as on the right side, and the church has often had to be corrected by the culture rather than successfully correcting the culture. This is to be expected when human beings are interpreting human writings which touch upon the deepest topics of human life and experience of the divine.<br />
<br />
Scripture is also just one of many things which we rightly take into account when discussing theology and church life, including philosophy and reason, science, history, our own personal and collective experiences, God's ongoing inspiration, what the various Christian traditions have to say on the matter, and so on. This is right and good and necessary, and I believe, precisely what God intends for us to do. To use our whole minds, our whole bodies, and our whole collective wisdom, to bring all of that to bear, to the best of our abilities.<br />
<br />
Bible-thumpers need not apply. [2]<br />
<br />
***<br />
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<i>1. No, I won't literally slap you. I'll just want to. Nonviolence is for the violent, after all.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>2. If you want to read it and talk about it, I'm with you. If you want to thump it or use it as a weapon, see above.</i>Douglas Underhillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215736448645573566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-46072864976052145962011-01-12T06:12:00.000-08:002011-01-13T17:09:15.275-08:00Broken Reeds<i>This was the sermon I preached this last Sunday, January 9th. I had written an entirely different sermon focusing on the Baptism of Jesus in Matthew, but following the events of the week felt compelled to rewrite. Hat tip to George Macdonald whose ideas these were before they were mine</i><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+42%3A1-9&version=NIV">Isaiah 42:1-9</a><br />
<br />
The words God spoke to Jesus at his baptism are echoed in many places through scripture including this passage from Isaiah where God says “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations.” Justice to the nations. As Jesus was being ordained, commissioned by God through John and the water of the river Jordan for his ministry of salvation this thought was reverberating in the background – that he would bring justice to the nations. And not just any kind of justice but one that is described as being so gentle it would not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick.<br />
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This morning I ask you to meditate on justice. Justice is an ideal everyone will commend and everyone claim to desire and to serve, but I want you to consider whether we have any idea what justice is, in light of recent events in our society.<br />
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Yesterday a young white man of 22 years, Jared Loughner, walked into the middle of a meeting in Tucson, Arizona and opened fire on a group of people gathered there to meet their congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords. Representative Giffords was hit in the head and at first believed dead, but is now known to be alive and in intensive care after surgery, and is under sedation as they wait to see if she will survive. Others were injured and six were killed outright including Gabe Zimmerman, an aide to the congresswoman. US District Judge John Roll. Dorothy Morris, 76. Dorwin Stoddard, 76. Phyllis Scheck, 79. Christina Greene, a child of 9.<br />
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People are rightly shocked by this horrific violence, which unfortunately is only exceptional in that it targeted a political figure. On the same day 27 people were killed in the ongoing drug war in Mexico. There are 16 casualties on average every day in our conflict in Afghanistan. There are 11 or 12 deaths each day due to violence in Iraq. Given national averages, in our own country, 45 other murders occurred in America yesterday which received no national media attention. <br />
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Regardless of the circumstances, the attack on Representative Giffords yesterday was a travesty. We should lift up our prayers on behalf of all of those injured, the families of those murdered, and the whole of our nation as it reflects on the complex dynamics that lead to violence.<br />
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We must also pray for Jared Loughner, the man who decided to take a gun and point it at another human being and pull the trigger repeatedly. There will be a lot of over-analysis focusing on young Jared in the media in the coming days. His internet profile will be delved into. His personal life will be examined. His friends and family and acquaintances will be interviewed as everyone tries to come up with some explanation for why he chose to do what he did.<br />
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Some people already are blaming the political rhetoric in our country which has gotten so intemperate that attack ads regularly indulge in violent metaphors “targeting” their opponents. We have reached a point where we no longer distinguish between political adversaries and enemies. The hatreds and divisions along ideological lines are stark these days much to our shame. That climate may have contributed to this attack, and it is definitely deplorable behavior, but Jared was still the one who pulled the trigger.<br />
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Others will blame this attack on mental illness. They will say that Jared Loughner is a disturbed young man. A lone bad apple. Psychotic. Crazy. <br />
<br />
It is probably true that he is suffering from a madness, but if so it is a very mundane, even commonplace madness. It is a delusion that most of humanity suffers from – the delusion that retributive violence is a mechanism of justice. <br />
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The servant of God is coming to bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth.<br />
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Though we do not yet know the specific reasons Jared Loughner did what he did it is guaranteed that in his mind it was justified. He almost certainly did not fire that gun believing himself to be doing evil. He probably believed at the time, and perhaps even now, that his actions were in some way contributing to a just result. A righting of wrongs.<br />
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This hysterical delusion has gripped humanity from our beginnings and though we have shaken it in rare and beautiful occasions, too often it has ruled the day. Our courts, our prisons, our armies, our security, our governments, our identities are built on the illusion that evil can be defeated by force, that wrongs can be righted by punishment.<br />
<br />
But punishment and retribution have no power to make things right. Violence can never establish peace. <br />
<br />
Consider a very basic example. If you have stolen something from me, how can this injustice be made right? If you are caught and sent to jail does this fix my injury? Even if the stolen object is found by the police and returned to me, has justice been accomplished? Won’t the lingering wound of having my privacy invaded, my trust violated remain? How can your punishment fix that? It doesn’t. There is only one way for amends to be made and that is for you to repent and come to me asking for forgiveness. That is it. No judge, no court, no police officer, no lightning bolt from the sky, no punishment of any kind can ever fix my injury. Only the one who injured me has the power to right the wrong. Only I, by forgiving, have the means to restore peace.<br />
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But instead of repenting and seeking forgiveness, and instead of offering it to those who have wounded us we keep seeking justice through retribution. We keep hoping the proper application of punishment will heal our wounds. In our personal relationships this is deadly, and when applied to society as a whole, extrapolating our own grievous injuries onto the body politic it results in a massacre. Every time we turn to the sword for justice we end up with broken reeds scattered across the floor. Shattered lives, wrecked hopes, and dismembered dreams are all that remain of our quest for justice.<br />
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We must conclude that we know nothing about the nature of justice, least of all God's justice which comes at the hands of one so gentle it does not break even a bruised reed. Justice, as Christ administers it, is not something opposed to forgiveness, not a force tempered by mercy, but mercy itself, forgiveness itself, reconciliation itself made concrete between victim and perpetrator so that not even a smoldering wick would be quenched by its arrival.<br />
<br />
Since humanity could reason we have always reasoned the costs of retributive violence justified. They are not, and never can be. No matter how we will it, or legislate it, or excuse it violence will never bring us either justice or peace. It will only heap more broken reeds on the pile.<br />
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But there is a way for us to act justly toward one another. There is a way for us to make peace.<br />
<br />
In Egypt there is a sect of Christians, the Copts, who are a very small minority in that mostly Muslim country. Furthermore, the government of Egypt has not been protective of their rights, but has too often turned a blind eye to violence and persecution committed against the Copts by others. Recently the violence has been particularly bad with extreme Islamist groups attacking Coptic Christians in their churches. A car bomb just over a week ago on New Years Eve in Alexandria killed 21 Copts. 21 broken reeds. 21 lives cut short. No doubt the bombers believed like Jared Loughner and like all people who have ever committed violence for a cause that they were contributing to a better and more just future.<br />
<br />
But a movement sprung up in the wake of this latest bombing. Some Muslims began to say that they would not tolerate the violence. They would not tolerate the attacks supposedly made in their name against their fellow Egyptians. "An attack against one is an attack against us all," they said. Banners went up throughout the city of Alexandria showing a cross inside a crescent - symbolizing the unity of all Egyptians. A plan was formulated. Coptic Christians follow a different calendar than us in the west. Their Christmas holiday is on January 7th. During the mass to celebrate that holiday when Copts would be gathered in their churches and more attacks were feared Muslims began showing up at the doors and outside the churches holding candle-light vigils. They would be human shields, risking their lives, so that if any violence were attempted against the Copts it would kill Muslims too.<br />
<br />
Thousands. They stood up by the thousands willing to take a bullet for people very different from them. People with no political power or importance. People their own government wouldn't protect. They arrived like God's justice- quietly, but formidably. Irresistible in its graciousness, and so gentle that not even a bruised reed was broken.<br />
<br />
They proved conclusively by their actions that violence can never establish justice. But love can.Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-35678634911628902812011-01-11T04:17:00.000-08:002011-01-11T04:17:00.584-08:00Conclusion<i>Thank you for following through each of these posts and for engaging in discussion, even when it became frustrating to do so on both sides. We will continue to have this conversation, but we will also be moving toward new issues and topics. The issue of LGBTQ ordination has taken up a tremendous amount of our time and energy in the last couple of months, but it is far from what we see to be the greatest challenge facing the Church today. LGBTQ ordination is merely an instance where we felt we could make many very powerful arguments in favor of inclusion, and could further refute many poor arguments put forward against equality for LGBTQ persons.</i><br />
<br />
There are not even selfish reasons to retain G-6.0106b and continue to unjustly exclude LGBTQ persons from ordination. That single clause will not prevent frustrated congregations from leaving the denomination, nor will it convince parishioners frustrated with decades of conflict over this issue to remain. It will not maintain even a veneer of peace, unity and purity in the church. G-6.0106b does not put our current debates over ordination to rest. What it means is that barely more than half of the denomination is able to force its interpretation of ordination on every individual Presbytery, congregation, and member of the Presbyterian Church (USA).<br />
<br />
Getting rid of G-6.0106b will not force a single Presbytery or congregation to ordain or accept a single candidate they do not vote to accept. What it will do is enable thousands of congregations and dozens of Presbyteries who have been a slight minority in the denomination right now to consider, just consider, LGBTQ persons for ordination where they might be called to serve.<br />
<br />
In a situation where believers disagree in good faith according to their conscience, where 30 years or argument has not made any progress in producing consensus, it seems most reasonable, most just, and best to allow freedom of conscience. Nothing is preserved when 51% of the denomination maintains a specific litmus-test and forces 49% to apply it. There is no other clause like G-6.0106b which is aimed at a specific issue in the same way in all of the Book of Order. G-6.0106b is an aberration in our polity, and we are better off in every conceivable way without it. It is not justified ethically, rationally, politically nor theologically. It is time for us to vote in favor of inclusion.Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-68365394650128303332011-01-08T04:16:00.000-08:002011-01-08T04:16:00.490-08:00The Church is currently lending tacit support to mocking, bullying, torment and exclusion suffered by LGBTQ persons<span style="color: #000099; font-weight: bold;"></span><br />
<blockquote>(<span style="color: #000099;">1</span>)LGBTQ persons are being mocked, bullied, tormented, and discriminated against at this very moment, possibly jailed or even executed overseas.(<span style="color: #000099;">2</span>) Some in recent days have taken their own lives as a direct result of this hateful treatment.(<span style="color: #000099;">3</span>) Every second we fail to stand up and declare unequivocally that God loves them and they are welcome, is a second we acquiesce to bigotry and tacitly support bullies.(<span style="color: #000099;">4</span>) It is time to begin undoing the harm official church policies of exclusion have wrought.</blockquote><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Commentary</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">1</span>. We can be thankful that the Church is no longer, in the United States, and other industrialized countries at least, able to lend it's <i>open </i>support to mocking, bullying and torment of LGTBQ persons, any more than the Church can any longer support anti-Semitism, as it did for many centuries. This is not the case in most of the rest of the world. The Church still can and does lend it's open support to exclusion, of course - that is part of what is at issue here.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000099;">2</span>. Here we are of course speaking of the most notable example of Uganda, where homosexuality may become a capital offense. Rather than winking and nodding at such reprehensible legislation, the Church should be denouncing it thoroughly and clearly in every possible venue.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000099;">3</span>. We have seen in the news that mocking, bullying and torment can drive LGBTQ persons, as well as others in groups which are the targets of derision, to commit suicide. Again, as with the case in Uganda, the Church should take pains to distance itself from such reprehensible behavior. Instead, the position of the anti-inclusion crowd isn't that the bullies and mockers are <i>wrong</i>, only that they use the wrong methods.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000099;">4</span>. And not only bullies, but possibly execution-squads and lynch-mobs as well. What in affluent, industrialized society is an issue of bullying is much more serious in failed or tenuous states which do not provide their citizens with the many protections we enjoy.Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-86048632298640071402011-01-05T04:15:00.000-08:002011-01-05T04:15:01.123-08:00No church that does not choose a LGBTQ minister, Elder or Deacon will ever have to ordain one<span style="color: #000099; font-weight: bold;"></span><br />
<blockquote>(<span style="color: #000099;">1</span>)Even if the PC(USA) is to begin ordaining LGBTQ persons this very moment, there is no church anywhere in the denomination which would be forced to accept any particular LGBTQ pastor, Elder or Deacon against its will.(<span style="color: #000099;">2</span>) It is the Presbytery’s function to examine candidates for Ministry of Word and Sacrament, and that will continue without interruption when G-6.0106b is erased from the Book of Order.(<span style="color: #000099;">3</span>) The fact is that G-6.0106b does not protect anyone from anything. All it does is ensure that people who are demonstrably called to pastoral ministry are not allowed to live that calling out, and churches in need of pastoral leadership are unable to find it.(<span style="color: #000099;">4</span>)</blockquote><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Commmentary</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">1</span>. This was one claim that we made which <a href="http://twofriarsandafool.blogspot.com/2010/12/responding-to-rev-tom-hobson-phd.html">Rev. Tom Hobson</a> called dishonest, but in our response to him we demonstrated very clearly why this is the case, and will be the case for the foreseeable future. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000099;">2</span>. This is not, nor ever has been, an issue of somehow forcing squirming Presbyterians to accept ministers, Elders or Deacons their congregations and Presbyteries do not choose. That is absurd, as well as beyond the scope of <a href="http://www.witherspoonsociety.org/2010/presbyteries_act_on_10A.htm">Amendment 10A</a>.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000099;">3</span>. As we said earlier, G-6.0106b adds nothing whatsoever of value to the Book of Order, and in losing it, we lose nothing but a shackle on the Gospel.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000099;">4</span>. What we have in our current system is the enforcement of a particular stance on a non-essential in the Reformed faith. <b>Intelligent, faithful people of good conscience can and do disagree on LGBTQ ordination</b>. For this very reason, we should expunge G-6.0106b.Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-91681275646493883922011-01-02T04:14:00.000-08:002011-01-02T04:14:00.237-08:00LGBTQ persons already serve in other denominations<span style="color: #000099; font-weight: bold;"></span><br />
<blockquote>LGBTQ persons are serving in ordained ministry in various denominations currently and the predicted denominational collapses have not taken place.(<span style="color: #000099;">1</span>) The real harm is being done however by our continuing to fight over this issue, which damages the peace, unity and purity of the church particular and universal, as well as the witness of the church to the world.(<span style="color: #000099;">2</span>)<br />
Furthermore, we must never shrink from doing what is right for the sake of protecting our denomination. Even if acting justly causes a mass exodus from our denomination, that is no reason to continue to act unjustly.(<span style="color: #000099;">3</span>)</blockquote><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Commentary</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">1</span>. This issue has been addressed in the <a href="http://www.ucc.org/">UCC</a>, <a href="http://www.elca.org/">ELCA</a>, <a href="http://www.uua.org/">UU</a>, <a href="http://www.episcopalchurch.org/index.htm">Episcopal Church</a>, <a href="http://ufmcc.com/">MCC</a>, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Alliance_of_Affirming_Apostolic_Pentecostals">GAAAP</a>, the <a href="http://www.rpifellowship.com/">RPI</a>, <a href="http://www.quaker.org/">Religious Society of Friends</a>, the <a href="http://www.swedenborg.org/Home.aspx">Swedenborgian Church of North America</a>, the <a href="http://www.uca.org.au/">Uniting Church in Australia</a>, and others, all of which ordain "practicing" LGBTQ persons. Other churches like the United Methodists and even the Moravian Church are where the PC(USA) is - actively moving toward LGBTQ ordination. As you can see from the long, robust, and growing list of churches ordaining LGBTQ persons, there has been no great collapse. Their ministry and witness is not compromised. In fact, these open and affirming denominations and organizations are in a better position than the PC(USA) currently is - they are benefiting from the calling, gifts and fruits of their sisters and brothers.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000099;">2</span>. What is certainly tearing denominations apart is the lethal attempt to combine the Gospel with bigotry.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000099;">3</span>. We cannot imagine one who loves and follows Jesus Christ choosing the life and health of the denomination over their life with God. The Protestant Reformation, which resulted in so many denominations today, was a catastrophe for the Roman Catholic Church, breaking apart its stronghold in Europe at the time. Should we then say that the Reformation should never have happened?Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com51tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-56211401657877918532010-12-30T04:14:00.000-08:002010-12-30T04:14:00.593-08:00Exclusion of LGBTQ persons adds nothing of value to the ordination standards we already have<blockquote>Ignore for the moment that the average American becomes sexually active at 16 and gets married at 28, and that simple ‘chastity in singleness’ does not begin to address this societal reality in believers’ lives.(<span style="color: #000099;">1</span>) Apart from the exclusion of LGBTQ persons from ordination, G-6.0106b does nothing whatsoever to further or deepen the Book of Order’s definition of ordained office or requirements for those seeking ordination.(<span style="color: #000099;">2</span>) It can be omitted without losing anything of value.(<span style="color: #000099;">3</span>)</blockquote><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Commentary</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">1</span>. Turning specifically to the 'fidelity and chastity' clause of G 6.0106b, we find a standard that <a href="http://www.nationalsexstudy.indiana.edu/">at least 95% of Americans have entirely abandoned</a> - that of total chastity outside of marriage. This standard arose in a context where it was common for 14 year-olds to be married, and to be parents before they would be allowed to vote in the United States. Education and rising standards of living have made it so that this way of life will likely never return. What we currently demand is that the vast majority of ordained persons in the last few decades simply and quietly buy into the duplicity of our polity. We do not ask; they do not tell about their actual sexual practices, because we don't dare. The most effective way for G 6.0106b to be repealed is for it to actually be enforced. As it stands, our policies encourage heterosexual hypocrisy as well as exclusion of called LGBTQ persons.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000099;">2</span>. Our ordination standards say that we should ordain no person who fails to repent of anything which Scripture and <a href="http://home.earthlink.net/%7Evalewis/sins.html">the Confessions call sin</a>. That, right there, makes every single Presbyterian minister, Elder and Deacon utterly undeserving of ordination. There are so many things called sin, many of which are such sweeping categories that thorough repentance is utterly impossible. Are you ever stubborn? Do you ever doubt or exhibit any unbelief in anything scripture or the confessions say? Have you ever "done works which have no other warrant than the invention and opinion of man?" Meaning - do you ever do anything that is not positively commanded or at least permitted by analogy in scripture, such as watch a movie? Have you ever made, displayed or viewed any picture of God? Do you fail to hate sin with your whole heart? Do you ever ascribe any good at all to anything besides God? Do you make bold or curious searchings into God's secrets? G 6.01016b is not only an impossible standard, it is vague to the point of uselessness. Applying it consistently would require a degree of interpretation of scripture and the confessions which no group of people could possibly consent to as it would invariably include behaviors many people simply do not agree are sinful.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000099;">3</span>. 10A does more than simply delete the section of the Book of Order in question - it replaces it with a statement that is far superior and which draws upon Presbyterian history for an answer that empowers Presbyteries and allows for freedom of conscience in the non-essential issue of the status of LGBTQ persons.Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-51482720122906869462010-12-28T23:15:00.000-08:002010-12-28T23:17:36.023-08:00Kind of Cuts to the Heart<div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
<a href="http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/1135238941_tVKGy-L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Dropping The Science" border="0" height="200" src="http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/1135238941_tVKGy-L.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/12/24/dropping-some-science/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+pa-mainsite+(Penny+Arcade)">Here's the link to the comic</a>.</div>Douglas Underhillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215736448645573566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-3509115395347657502010-12-27T04:13:00.000-08:002010-12-27T04:13:00.079-08:00The Priesthood is composed of all believers<blockquote>(<span style="color: #000099;">1</span>)In the Reformed tradition, from the very beginning, it was understood that every believer is responsible as part of the priesthood - that priesthood was not a special ontological status conferred by the church, but was rather a general calling conferred by the grace of God on all baptised believers.(<span style="color: #000099;">2</span>) The fact is that every LGBTQ Christian is <span style="font-style: italic;">already</span> called to ministry.(<span style="color: #000099;">3</span>)</blockquote><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Commentary</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">1</span>. This post follows upon the theme and logic of the <a href="http://twofriarsandafool.blogspot.com/2010/12/our-first-and-most-important-ordination.html">previous one</a>, and is once again simply recapitulating a basic Reformed theological understanding and applying it to LGBTQ ordination.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000099;">2</span>. Again, we are all priests. Every one of us, despite the failings we are aware of and those we don't even have the discernment and wisdom to see.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000099;">3</span>. This discussion is not about ontology, it is about polity. What are we to do with these individuals, called by God but denied certain functions in our polity? Continue to ignore God's calling, or change?Aric Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15241157655075444268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7226481506470506962.post-24719377725080779032010-12-26T06:59:00.000-08:002010-12-26T08:49:27.847-08:00In For A Sheep, In For A Herd<div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.9812043942511082" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>These are my sermon notes, what I write out and then use to create bullet-points to preach from. I get the overall movement down, the ideas, a few of the pithy phrases, and then I discard it and go from notes. These notes are more complete than usual, and I think the illustration is kind of cool, so here you go. This is what I'll be preaching in 30 minutes:</i></span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.9812043942511082" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.9812043942511082" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Luke 2:8-20</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Luke 15:1-7</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want to give some illustration around the idea of shepherds - I recently read an article that changed my image, my viewpoint, and let me to understand something more deeply than I did before. If you want me to point you in the direction of the article, I can after the service, but it was written by Professor Richard Beck on his blog Experimental Theology.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Go back to the text and our imagery - what is a shepherd like? Relatively poor, might be watching someone else’s flock, considered scruffy and somewhat dangerous. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What is a farmer like?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Herdsmen tend to be more violent than farmers. You can see this in Westerns - cowboys are rowdy and carry six-guns. Farmers primarily provide daughters for cowboys to marry. They do so, settle down, and do what? Go into farming.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The reason is simple - it’s really hard to steal a farm, or to steal food from a farm. There’s too much of it. It isn’t very mobile. And for most of the year, a lot of it isn’t in edible form. The farmer might have neighbors who will stick up for him, and so on.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stealing a herd is really easy. Cattle-rustlers, right? From the same westerns.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Imagine life for these shepherds: the sheep are everything they have. All of their wealth; their investment portfolio; their medicare and medicaid when they get old; their 401k retirement plan; their day to day paycheck - all of that.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To illustrate this, I did something I probably shouldn’t have. I went to the bank a few days ago, and I withdrew all of the money we had there in cash. Mostly small bills, actually, just to illustrate. There’s what’s in our checking account, as well as all we’ve saved in order to pay taxes this year - my taxes don’t come out of my paycheck, for the most part, as a pastor, so at tax-time we’ll be paying a huge bill all at once for the whole year.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyway, in this box is everything we have.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And this is what it’s like to be a shepherd. (Dump it out)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There it is, all we have, lying out there where anyone can take it, any time. Imagine this being your life - all you have in the world wandering around, bleating. You bet your behind you’d be watching your flocks by night. And by day. Would you dare sleep? Say a stranger comes near your flock - would you be welcoming? Hell no. You’d be locked and loaded.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s what it’s like to be a shepherd - constant anxiety that in a moment of neglect, you can lose everything. The difference between prosperous herdsman and starving beggar is one bad night.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And now we return to our cute pastoral story about the angels coming to sing carols with the shepherds. Only it doesn’t look much like that anymore. We already talked about how terrifying angels are - shepherds are little better. Come up to a shepherd in the dark and startle him and see if you live to see the dawn. Not likely.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And yet these shepherds, when they hear the news about the birth of the Messiah, leave their flocks and go into town looking, door to door one imagines, seeking Jesus.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We don’t know if their flocks are there when the shepherds return. All it would take is one cynical shepherd to see everyone else was leaving their flocks, and he could take off with everyone else’s investment portfolio. In a heartbeat. Not to mention wolves, or other predators. Or the fact that sheep are stupid, and they just wander off sometimes.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is not just “Hey, let’s go see a cute baby guys”. This is a group of tough, sleepless, violent men dropping everything, risking losing everything they own, to go see Jesus.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then - the shepherds could have returned to find their flocks gone. The question is - given that, did they make a mistake? Should they have stayed in the field, guarded their income, and ignored the baby Jesus?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Should we do that? Is it the prudent thing, the wise thing, the right thing? To remain ever concerned about our income, our retirement, and to neglect the times when Christ calls us into the world to do something? To live out our calling?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Would we be the shepherds who stayed behind? Because when we hesitate to risk, that’s who we are. We don’t make it into the story. We miss Jesus entirely.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">***</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s continue on the shepherd theme. Not only is Jesus birth attended by shepherds, but Jesus is later, as an adult, referred to as the Good Shepherd.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, this is not because Jesus acts like a skillful shepherd. If Jesus was caring for actual sheep, he would be broke in a heartbeat. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jesus tells a parable about a good shepherd - but no one who heard this story would have agreed with him at first. It is more like a parable of an idiot shepherd who is destined for poverty.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Illustrate with fake money again - get a pile and walk and drop a bill somewhere)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is Jesus’ so-called good shepherd. He’s going along with his herd, a hundred sheep, or, let’s say, ten thousand dollars. He drops a hundred dollar bill, and later realizes it. (Throw money up in the air) He goes off looking for this lost one hundred dollar bill, leaving nine thousand, nine hundred dollars lying out on the ground for anyone to take. He risks 99 for the sake of 1 lost sheep.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This shepherd is a moron. In economic terms, this shepherd is a failure.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This shepherd is Jesus.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The incarnation, the Christmas story, is among other things, the Good Shepherd loving us so much, valuing us so greatly, that he comes to find us where we are, seeks us out, and risks everything in the process.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So we do not go seeking a God who is indifferent, or who is removed from us, waiting for our approach. We go seeking a God who has already sought us, so passionately and relentlessly, that he takes on flesh, and every weakness, and absolute vulnerability, in order to find us when we are lost.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That is a God like no other.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And so here we are, watching our flocks by night - guarding our interests even when we are at rest, ready to go to war, to fight, to defend what is ours.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And our calling is to set it all down and to go seeking Jesus while he can be found.</span></div>Douglas Underhillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02215736448645573566noreply@blogger.com4