The Sermon Trilogy

It seems well and proper to do things in threes. I mean you got your Trinity, your Trinity, and your Trinity. You can check out your Three Musketeers, your three-toed sloth, and, well let's face it, three is just the best number there is. Now that the case as been built, I shall follow the model and post not one, not two, not five, but three sermons, all for the price of ten. You can thank me later by donating donuts to my breakfast cause. Sermon #1:

Luke 1:39-55 39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!" 46 And Mary said: "My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, 49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me-- holy is his name. 50 His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. 51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. 52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. 53 He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. 54 He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful 55 to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers."

If you’ve ever sat in the dark long enough, you know that your eyes begin to adjust after a while. The initial shock of the darkness makes you momentarily blind. Then as time goes on, your pupils dilate and eventually your eyes adapt to the change in light and you are able to see again. Maybe not as well as when the lights were on, but a little bit better than when you started. Your eyes become sensitive to the little light that is remaining, and change so that what little light is there now becomes the norm. But have you ever sat in a place where there is no light? I don’t mean very little light, I mean no light. When the light leaves, everything goes black, just like when you first flip off a light switch at night, but then, when you expect your eyes to adjust, nothing happens. You can even feel your eyes struggling to pick up on any sort of light anywhere, but to no avail. Then, of course, the tell tale sign of whether or not you can see is to put your hand a foot in front of your face. When there’s a little light, you usually say that you can’t see your hand, but sometimes you can. But when there’s no light, you do say that you can see your hand. The tricky thing is that you’re not really seeing your hand, but your mind is playing tricks on you. It knows that your hand is supposed to be there, and it pretends to see your hand. When there’s no light, you convince yourself that you can see.

I would be willing to bet that there’s not a person in this room that doesn’t know what Christmas preparation is all about. Even if you don’t have gigantic plans for this Christmas season, you’ve seen the preparation in the form of traffic on the roads, or paranoia or stress in neighbors, and family, and friends. You’ve seen people get tired and burned out, and all for the sake of what? To give presents to another person? To set aside time to spend with those you love? It seems like people stumble around for one, maybe even two months at a time, without even knowing what they’re looking at. We’ve been given eyes to see what’s going on, but our brain has tricked us into seeing something else.

When I think of Mary, I think of the criticisms I hear directed towards young pregnant unmarried women today. It’s not too favorable, is it? Aside from the snide comments made by her classmates, she hears from those in the community that she is irresponsible, out of control, a deviant, immoral, corrupt, and that she has ruined her life. You see, I hear that and think, that’s how it was for Mary, too. Mary would no doubt go on to hear ridicule, and scorn, to hear shouts cursing her and calling her a miscreant. People would see her walking around with Jesus inside, and utter some of the harshest insults that they could muster. People would see with their eyes that this young unmarried woman was pregnant, and they would call her out for what they see as unacceptable behavior, but again, they missed what is really there to be seen.

This interaction between Mary and Elizabeth in today’s Gospel, gives us the piece that has been missing, the thing that has been there, but we haven’t been seeing: God. God gives meaning to everything that goes on around us. You see without God, this season would be just a bunch of busy little ants scurrying about from place to place with no purpose for living. Without God, Mary and Elizabeth would not be remembered in any books as anything significant, except maybe that they were kind people. Without God we would be sitting in the darkness staring into the pitch black and convincing ourselves that we could see things as they are when we really can’t.

John, in Elizabeth’s womb, teaches us a little piece about that. John, who cannot see the world around him, who cannot use his eyes to play tricks on him, perks up to pay attention, because he can see, already, that God is doing something here. Without God, John won’t be good for a whole lot. John’s whole reason for living is to be an arrow which points to what is going to happen, and that is, that God is coming to bring down the powerful, and lift up the lowly. God is coming to feed the hungry, and take away from the rich. God is coming, but not in the way that we would expect to see with our eyes, but that seems to be just the way that God works. God is coming to be born from the lowest person on the totem pole: a pregnant, unmarried, teenager, who finds herself without a home for the birth of her child.

Without God, there is no meaning to what we do day in and day out. We could be kind if we wanted, we could be cruel if we wanted, we could love, or we could hate, it would make no difference. But because of God, everything has meaning. Because of God, Mary is lifted to be blessed by all generations. Because of God, John sits up gives his mom a kick and says, “See what’s going on here, God is coming!” Because of God, we no longer sit in darkness with our minds fooling us into telling us what is real and what is important.

We give gifts, because of what God gives us, we spend time with family, because God came to spend time with us. We rejoice because we, who were low and sitting in the dark, have been given vision and meaning to all that is around us. We, like Mary, have been blessed to be the favored ones, and we, like Mary, like the church before, and after us, are blessed to have God give meaning to our lives, and purpose to everything around us. Amen.

Advent 3. Is It Really a Week Before Christmas?

The middle one:

Luke 3:7-18 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? ⁸ Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. ⁹ The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." ¹⁰ "What should we do then?" the crowd asked. ¹¹ John answered, "The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same." ¹² Tax collectors also came to be baptized. "Teacher," they asked, "what should we do?" ¹³ "Don't collect any more than you are required to," he told them. ¹⁴ Then some soldiers asked him, "And what should we do?" He replied, "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely-- be content with your pay." ¹⁵ The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ. ¹⁶ John answered them all, "I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. ¹⁷ His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." ¹⁸ And with many other words John exhorted the people and preached the good news to them.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Polite, simple to the point. You snake bellied, poisonous, good for nothing slobs! A bit less kind, it certainly still gets a point across, but not one that would encourage further conversation. John’s greeting would certainly not pass for the front of a Hallmark card, at least not for one that you would send to a person that you would like to be your friend after reading it. It is an offensive greeting, and one that is intended to offend, at least, I’ve never called someone a snake to their face and meant it in a good way.

You brood of vipers, you pack of snakes, you who take life away from those around you. John really sets the table to get worked up and beats people over the head with the bad that they are doing in their lives.

This Sunday, this third week in advent, has a tradition of being called Gaudete Sunday, or “rejoice” Sunday. Certainly you can hear that theme running through some of the lessons, but maybe no one told John the Baptist that this was supposed to be Rejoice Sunday. Maybe no one told him that we’re supposed to be excited that the Messiah is coming, maybe no one told him that we were supposed to be having parties and sharing gifts in celebration. Or maybe someone did tell him. And maybe he realized why exactly it was that the Messiah was coming, why it was that God had to come down to earth in the first place. John is just telling us how it is, so that we understand where we are.

We have come looking for the easy way out. We want the baptism from John, but he wants to make sure we understand what it’s all about. Forgiveness of sins after you change your ways. Baptism after repentance. You brood of vipers, you don’t even get who you are, you just want to feel good about the way you conduct your life. What we don’t even get is that the way we live our lives leads us to death, our selfish, greedy passions walk us right down the path.

And not only that, but the way that we live our lives leads others to death. I find it to resonate completely that John answers the three requests for direction, with answers about how to deal with our money, and our possessions. To the tax collectors: collect your honest amounts, to the Soldiers: be happy with what you earn, and don’t use force to take money from others, and to the everyday person: take what you have and share it with others. John tells us to take the things that we want to hide, the things we don’t want to talk about, the things we want to keep private, and use them in a way that helps lift up the people around you.

After sitting for a while and reflecting on the speech from John, I think we’d all like to move on. We’d like to get someone else on the podium, someone who’s gonna let us off the hook. Well John gives us a glimpse of what’s coming next. And I got bad news for you, it sounds like it’s gonna get worse. This new person that’s coming has way more authority than John will ever have, this new person, is going to tell you how it really is, this new person is coming with the Holy Spirit and fire to clean you all out. If you thought John was bad, you haven’t seen anything yet. Rejoice! This is the good news that John is sharing! Not buying that, eh?

I think we misinterpret John’s message a little bit. I’ve certainly heard a fair bit of talks about how damnation and the fires of hell await you if you don’t straighten up your act, and if you read John’s speech in a certain way, that’s the meaning that you’re going to get. What I think we miss out of John’s speech is God’s desire for life. The ultimate conclusion is not that the wicked get punished, but that things need to change in order for life to grow. Look again at the directions of John’s answers. The replies to the people who ask are less about the people themselves, and more about the people that are going to benefit from this new way of living. Collecting the right amount of taxes is less about the tax collector, and more about the person struggling to make ends meet. Giving away the clothes is less about you breaking with your possessions, and more about allowing the naked person to be clothed. The reason that you continue to host interns like me is less about getting some of the needs in this congregation met, and more about equipping us interns to go and preach the word in another place.

This text puts a whole new spin on stewardship for us. That our money, and our talents, and our time, and our work is less about preserving ourselves and making us feel good about contributing, and more about the people who will benefit from the continued ministries of this place. Now that sounds an awful lot more like good news to me. I think what stings us about John’s words is that he is telling us how far all of this needs to go. John is giving us the formula for what needs are still out there, what ministry needs to be done, and telling us with his not so kind greeting that we have been blind to seeing it so far. And the Messiah, who is coming down the road next is going deeper than John, and going to tell you exactly how much needs to happen in order for life to flourish.

We don’t have any requirements in our Baptism that say you need to live your life in a certain way in order to be forgiven. We can sit here, and we can become greedy and selfish, exploit people, tend to our own needs until the end of our lives. But I ask you, when you hear the words of John telling us what needs to be done in order for life to grow, and when you think that whoever is coming after John is going to teach you a new way of living that goes beyond death and suffering, can you really just sit there and continue on with the same pattern you’ve always been in?

The caboose, or the beginning, depending on how you look at it

This is the sermon I did for the midweek service on Thursday...that's right a Thursday midweek. It makes sense when you look at the 7 day week, unless of course you put Sunday as the first day in the calendar, weirdos.

Malachi 3:1-4 "See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty. ² But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap. ³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, ⁴ and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.

I’ve always been intrigued by the image of refining. The process of continually cooking something until it reaches perfection, or at least perceived perfection. The end product, as you know, of refining dirty, nasty gold that you find in the ground is the shiny, glamorous, reflective material that many of us wear on our fingers, or around our necks, maybe on our teeth if we wanted to start a rap career. The process of refining gold, using the image from Malachi, is a tad bit bland for me, however. Gold either is heated, or has electricity run through it until it reaches its pure state. Every batch of gold that comes out essentially looks exactly the same. I imagine that if you worked at a gold refinery, you’d probably be sick of gold by now. I’m sure you’ve heard the devotional story by now that the gold refiner keeps a careful eye on the gold and knows that it’s pure when he can see his reflection in the metal. This of course being a metaphor for how Jesus is carefully grooming us to be more in his image. That’s nice and heart warming, and I like it, but like any image or metaphor we use to describe something, it’s incomplete.

The reason I sway away from this image is because I’m not convinced that we all start from the same place, all get formed by the same process, and all come out looking the same. Have you ever stopped and looked at the people around you. They’re a little bit weird. Some are downright crazy. While we may find some things we have in common, there are still a number of quite distinguishing characteristics about all of us, not just in the way we look or act, but how things affect us. We all react differently to different situations. Think of the reading from Luke. You don’t try to fill a crooked road, and you don’t try to make the rough road low. Each obstacle that presents itself as needing work gets dealt with in a manner appropriate to the situation. And the results are not always the same. Maybe it’s just me, but when you level a mountain, I don’t think you get a straight path.

I’m not convinced that when God has done the sanctification in this world, when Jesus comes again, when all the roads, paths, mountains, and all manner of things are prepared that we all end up like cookie cut-outs, indistinguishable from one another. Maybe it’s my desire to hold on to some of my person that I really like, or maybe it’s my desire to not be like some of the quirky things I see in people like him. But as I look at my past, and hear the stories of others, it seems to me quite obvious that we neither came from the same place, nor are headed in exactly the same direction.

The gold refining process might be a good broad analogy for the ultimate beginning and end. We are all born into new life as part of this body of God. We all die and get shiny new resurrected bodies free from the burdens of death and sin. But what about the in between? What about where we are now? I liken it a little more to a refining process the writer of Malachi was not familiar with in his time. The refining of crude oil.

Crude oil, when found in the ground, is dirty, smelly, nasty, rotten, but technically still functional. You could put it in a car and it would run, but you’d do more damage than good, maybe even blow up your car. Instead the oil gets processed. But the process does not proceed from one end to the other in the same manner, first the oil gets separated into component parts, the parts which will be used for gasoline, kerosene, diesel fuel, oil, wax, etc. Then once separated, each of these parts goes through its own process, some further separated, some things get added, some taken away. Through this series of labor and energy intensive processes, the oil gets changed into things which more often than not don’t look quite like they used to. The purposes for these many different products are multitudinous. Some were required to get you here tonight, some required to cook the soup we just ate, some to clean the floors your feet are dirtying. All from the same source, with different processes and different results.

You see, I’m not convinced that we’re all gonna end up exactly the same in the end, and just by sitting next to one another now, you can tell, we’re not in the same place currently. But we are all in the midst of this continuing creation. We have been brought out from where we were. Dirty, gross, functional, but barely and certainly not a whole lot else, kind of like mud. And we’re all in the process of being refined, of being formed into what Christ would have us be. So that we can end up as different parts, but parts that function together for the sole purpose of God’s glory.

The beauty in this middle time, between the beginning and the end, and the difference between the gold and the crude oil, is that the refining is specific for you. Not in the plural sense, like the you is the broader congregation, or the church, or the world, but you, the singular. You the quirky, you the broken, you the child of God, you. Part of this process is coming to receive Christ’s blood, and Christ’s body. The body and blood of Christ given for you, for you.

We come to be the Body of Christ by the broader refining, the same process as gold if you will. But to become the individual parts of the body, we grow and change in a process that is designed to help us grow into the person that God intends us to be, to be the individuals that God wants us to be, to make the creation that God intends to make.

From where we sit now, it’s a bit difficult to make out the beginning and the end of what’s happening here. And I would contend that even the best theologians and the best spiritual leaders see that the beginning and end are a mystery. But they realize that we who live here in the middle of the beginning and the end, we are continually being refined, seeing in life both something beyond what was happening day in and day out, and valuing what God’s doing in the world right now. Sometimes that can be comforting, other times it can feel like a burden. But to know that we have a creator with our best interests at heart; active by continually refining gives us hope. So that we can walk through whatever life gives us, be it good or bad, and keep an eye on the horizon for what’s coming in the end.

What Shall I Say?

No, this is not some discernment book for your candidacy committee. Rather, it is my musings about the NCAA football national championship game which already happened. I am, how you say, a Michigan fan. I placed a bet on the OSU-UM game and lost. Now every Saturday next fall I will don a Buckeye shirt. I watched the game, and yes while it was a few plays away from being a blowout by the Buckeyes, it was also a few plays away from being a blowout by the Wolverines. But it played out the way it did and it was a close game. Now we watch Ohio State and Florida play in the "real" championship game. Here's my thoughts on the whole BCS process:

1) For those people who argue for a playoff in college football, well, you got one this year. It wasn't bracketed in a #1 vs. #4 & #2 vs. #3 fashion, but it happened. If a playoff system was implemented, then the underdogs would have to visit the favored team's HQ and play. Well, Michigan went to The 'Shoe, and they ended up losing. Did this prove that OSU was decidedly better than UM? No. If they played in a neutral stadium would the result be different? Maybe, but it might be different even if they played in the same stadium. My point is this, there is no way to objectively evaluate whether one team is better than the other. Subjectivity comes in the form of playing conditions, spirit of the team, injuries, booth reviews, any manner of variables in or out of game that shape the atmosphere and the game itself. In short, even the NCAA basketball system doesn't provide an objective answer to who is #1. What we got this year was a 4 team playoff structure between Michigan, Ohio State, Florida, and Arkansas, we just didn't call it a playoff, oh and Arkansas got dropped off at the curb.

2) Following previous statement, it is completely my opinion that Michigan is better than Florida. Anything I read either way will not sway my opinion. You could make an argument either way and have a convincing case, if you really look at things honestly. If you want ideas, I could post ideas. If you want stats, I could post stats. Any fool that says they can show me definitive evidence that one team is better than the other can take his/her "objective analysis" and choke it down with a nice cool bottle of "I don't give a crap". We've built in our minds that one team beating another determines who's best for the entire year. It's not objective, but it's what we've settled for. So until UM and UF play, which won't happen, there's no comprehensive answer to the question.

3) Why I think Fla should be in the championship game: Regardless of whether or not UM got "jobbed" by the voting, someone else should get to play Ohio State. I still think USC is a better team than UF, but they aren't even in the conversation. And now for a twist: why I think Florida shouldn't be in the championship game: whining and lobbying should be punished, not rewarded. I wish Urban Meyer and I were friends so I could call him and dump him. Both arguments made, UF belongs in the championship game.

4) It's not beneath me to root for Ohio State, especially when such bad press is going around about the Big Ten. But I've got extra ammo for a gator-stompin this year.

5) I'm still gonna love every minute of the Rose Bowl, because two of the top teams in the country are gonna smash it out. That's what football's about, not about championships and voting, but about insulting the other person's mother, then stepping on their neck until they tap-out.

That's my 1,347 cents worth. Go Blue!

Wholesome Goodness Pwned by Christ the King

Alright, I'll fess up. Jesus gave me a whuppin this time. I think I spent more time on this sermon than any other that I've ever preached. I rewrote it three times, got two people to proofread it, I even added some things in when I was up a-preachin, and still, it felt subpar to me. My thoughts: Christ the King Sunday was only an idea in 1925, which makes it way too contemporary for the church(read: BS reasoning which just vents frustration). Allow me to preach at you:

John 18:33-37 Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" 34 Jesus answered, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" 35 Pilate replied, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?" 36 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here." 37 Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

There’s a part of this reading that I get a little hung up on. Jesus replies to Pilate in his witty manner that if his kingdom were from this world, then his subjects would be fighting to keep him from being arrested. At the beginning of this chapter, you may recall, Peter grabs a sword and strikes the ear of the High Priest’s servant. Peter, from all accounts that I can gather, is a follower of Jesus and is trying to keep him from being arrested, so why, Jesus? Did you forget in the process of about 25 verses that Peter, a good disciple, was willing to do all that he could in order to save you from being arrested? Is Peter not one of your subjects?

In a humorous parody of the Terminator movies, the comedians at Mad TV made a poke that I think makes a serious point. The character pretending to be this futuristic machine made to look like a human travels back in time, to the first century, in order to protect Jesus. At the last supper, this machine takes out his shotgun and blasts Judas, so that he can’t betray Jesus. Jesus walks over to Judas and gives him a defibrillator-like shock and brings him back to life, and the terminator promptly pulls out his shotgun again and stops Judas. “Dang it!” Jesus yells, “Stop doing that! Don’t you see, this is necessary!” It may sound kind of funny, but I always thought that if I could go back in time, that’s exactly what I would want to do, and you might think this too. I would want to stop Jesus from dying, just like the fake terminator, just like Peter.

In the exchange between Jesus and Pilate we get an idea of the problem with the definition of Jesus as a king. Pilate is asking Jesus whether he is the King of the Jews, and if he is in fact the King of the Jews, why have his people dethroned him. We do a great disservice to ourselves and Christ as a whole here if we limit Pilate’s question to this small group of individuals in the first century. Certainly Pilate has this thought on his mind, though. Why are your people rebelling against you? How about that, why are your people rebelling against you? If that doesn’t make you shift in your seat a little bit, let me make sure that you understand who Jesus’ people are. We are the ones who have taken on the name of Christian. We are Jesus’ followers. We are the subjects of Jesus’ kingdom. Why are we rebelling against Jesus? What did we do to stop him from being arrested?

It would be fitting for a band of rebels to try and storm Pilate’s palace and try and rescue their king. That’s what Pilate would expect, and I think that’s what we would expect if we were captured. But that’s precisely the text on which I get hung up. If my kingdom were from here, that’s exactly what would happen. All of my subjects would come tearing down these walls and prevent me from being crucified, but that’s not how we do things in my kingdom. Preposterous! A nation that would not die trying to save its king?!?!

The temptation has always been in the church to leave Jesus to be king of Sundays. To let Jesus rule when all is happy and well, and say that when things are going poorly that things are tainted by humans, or by Satan. Let Jesus govern your lives for a few hours on a Sunday morning so that you can feel ok for a while, before heading back in to work the next day. Christ the King Sunday is meant to flip that around, to get us focused on the fact that God not only has a say in our life after death, but also in the way we relate to one another and the way we go about our business on this earth.

What I find remarkable in this story is that everything is part of the plan. The beating, the trial, the persecution, the rebellion, the worst that humanity can offer is all part of the plan for redemption. Is it so far of a stretch to imagine, then, that the plan for the kingdom is still in place today? I think it’s easier for some to imagine than others. After all, it’s easier when you are the CEO of a company to say that God has planned this all out, than to sit at the bedside of someone dying and say that the kingdom is here. But I think Jesus as King is an example of the latter situation. That Christ, laid aside his crown of glory and honor, and left his seat which sat perched above the world, and dove into it, picking up the crown of thorns, and becoming a new example of Christ the King. One that travels with us every step of our lives and not just on Sundays.

This exchange between Jesus and Pilate reminds me that God is in control. Everything seems completely out of whack, and despite my desires to try and find a way to rectify the wrong that has happened, to prevent Jesus from being arrested and killed, what I’m really doing is trying to take control, and tell God the way that I want things to be.

Jesus lets Pilate know that he came to bear the truth, and the truth is this, professing the love of God for all of creation. St. Augustine reminds us that Jesus did not say that his kingdom was not here, but that his kingdom was not from here. What that really means is that when Jesus humbled himself unto death on the cross, he became King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and not a King that would reign from a seat distant from his kingdom, but one that would be right in the middle of all the dirt and mud that happens to his people.

Christ is King of the good and bad in our lives. The temptation is to just let Christ be King on Sundays, when everything’s nice, but if we can get ourselves out of the way, and put our ideas of what the kingdom of God should be like aside, then we can realize that Jesus is King and in control of all that we do and all that we have and all that we are.

A Quick Lesson on Equivocation...Sort of

A: Oh, vicar. How was Amy when you went to see her at the hospital today?

B's response either:
1) By the time I had arrived she was already gone.
2) When I got there she was already out.
3) She had left the hospital before I got there.
4) She was discharged and went home Sunday morning.

Here we note the importance of choosing words carefully. All of these answers actually say the same thing, and of course would be properly interpreted with an appropriate tone of voice. However, answer one could be interpreted as death. Answer two could be interpreted as: "Amy was already sleeping", or maybe that she was already being prepped for surgery. The third and fourth answers are a bit more clear, although they could both be stretched and interpreted to mean "put on hospice". And so, the final conclusion, which has been figured out by many before me(if you notice, everyone uses this response when asked how they are doing), but possibly not examined, is as follows:

A: Oh, vicar. How was Amy when you went to see her at the hospital today?
B: Good.

The Post to End All Posts

You would think that after waiting for over a month to post something that this meant all the humor, all the theological excellence, and all the witty wittiscisims I could muster would be compiled into one, concentrated, Super Post. Well, I aim to please so, after reading this post, just add water to your computer, and I guarantee you will have a reaction unlike any other.

Post Topics:
- Virginia Sucks
- Say Something Random, DJ
- Virginia Is the Best
- Why You Shouldn't Forward Emails to Me
- Virginia Sucks
- Why Religious Wars are Better than Football Rivalries

VIRGINIA SUCKS:
I swear, every time I look outside it looks like junk. It gets dark around 4:30 because we are on the East side of the Eastern Standard Timezone. It rains a whole heck of a lot more than they promised me it would. While I concede that Ohio may be bleaker more days of the year, I can only remember a handful of storms in my life that brought down trees. I've seen 3 here already in 3.5 months. Some they call hurricanes, some they call Nor'easters, some they call Friday.

SAY SOMETHING RANDOM, DJ:
I don’t know if I will ever answer what someone asks to their appeasement or to the satisfaction of God Almighty, but I will always be able to fill the silence following a question with words.

VIRGINIA IS THE BEST:
These people feed me. I don't mean invite to the house for a nice meal feed me, I mean professional chef cooking in our kitchen "gonna maka you some-a nice-a meat-a balls" feed me. Every Wednesday we have dinner here at the church, and I have yet to eat something that I have ever eaten in my entire life, except for a Savannah Shrimp Boat. And it's freakin good.

WHY YOU SHOULDN'T FORWARD EMAILS TO ME:
I fear for the people whose lives are in danger when these emails don't get sent. I have a bad(subjective judgment) habit of deleting those emails after I read them. I think so far I have been responsible for killing around 50 people including soldiers in Iraq, some kid with cancer in Vermont, and I think at some point, Jesus. So please, if you have any concern for these people in your hearts, let them live. However, if their lives depend on me forwarding their email, you better read them their last rites.

VIRGINIA SUCKS:
There are maybe 5 people who give a crap about the UM-OSU game. If we use Dr. Jim Childs' "concentric circles are good for everything" diagram, those five represent the inner core. There are people in that group that include UM grads and people with family that work at OSU, and one guy that wishes we could watch College Football on Easter. The next level are the marginally interested. I think there might be about 20-40 people. There's an even smaller group among this small group that are merely interested because I have told them how important this game is to me. Next is the larger group of people who think that the Big Ten is always overrated. You got your SEC fans, your ACC fans. I'll buy that the SEC is pretty solid this year, but the ACC fans need to wait until Bball gets in swing before I want to hear from them. I don't have an estimate for the number in this group, but it's the majority of sports fans here I think. Last but not least is the largest group, which is the people who just don't care. These are the ones that bug me the most. Why? Because these people don't exist in Toledo. Or if they do, they hide in a hole about this time of year. It's a sad day. I'd even settle for a "F- Michigan" yelled at the church if it meant a little more excitement. Now I'll go get geared up for the third "Game of the Century" this century.

WHY RELIGIOUS WARS ARE BETTER THAN FOOTBALL RIVALRIES:
Because religious fanatics kill people because they think it's right. Football fanatics "accidentally" kick the crap out of people. They certainly don't go on a killing tirade and say that they're "cleansing". So it's about intensity. In my attempt to pull together material for Sunday School, I came across these two pictures which I think sum it up quite nicely. I think the guy n the far right might be Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace. You gotta love Christianity:

The Stewardship Sermon

Well, now I've done it. I got up in the middle of the stewardship campaign and said my little piece about stewardship. It's still pending review, but I thought it went well. This is the first sermon I've given this year where I didn't really want to hear people telling me I did a good job, because I knew they would be talking about my performance. This time, I measured success by how it was received, ala Barbara Brown Taylor. Sad thing is, I won't ever know. Some people commented after service about it, but ultimately it is part of a five week stewardship campaign, so it is only a small piece of a larger puzzle. I am confident that I spoke my spin on the text though, and I can live with that.

And so, without further extended introduction, I give to you the stewardship sermon:

When you’re about my age it’s hard to claim that you’re an expert on too many things. You get past that childhood innocence, and dependency on parents, and you’re trying to make a name for yourself as an individual. Only problem is, you got your elders telling you that you’ve got no idea what life experience is, and you’ve got your youngers telling you that the music you listened to is showing up on the classic rock station. In this state of being limbo, I can confidently say that I have found something in which I am an expert. I am an expert at messing things up.
Plans for me are just one more opportunity to share my expertise. But I know I’m not alone in this venture. Because the Bible tells me so.

Jesus gets confronted with the question of divorce as a test, to see if he knows the laws and to try and get him in trouble, but Jesus switches the question. Jesus changes the focus of the topic from whether or not something is permitted, to whether or not something is intended. I have never been through a divorce, but I know people who have, as I’m sure all of you do, if you haven’t experienced one yourself. A divorce is painful, it’s heart wrenching, it seems like the end of life, and in a sense it is. As Jesus reminds us, marriage is a unification of life into one body, creating a relationship between two people so close, they now function as one unit. To pull that apart, is a tragedy, and the bond still remains, even if legally you have papers say that you are not together anymore.

This is not an opportunity to point fingers at someone who has been through a divorce. This is an indictment against all of us. That’s made perfectly clear by the disciples actions regarding the children. They bar the children from seeing Jesus because he is doing “adult things”. Then Jesus gets agitated. The disciples just don’t get it, then Jesus drops the bomb on them, “these are the ones to whom the kingdom of God is given.” The disciples are good at messing up Jesus’ intentions, in a similar fashion we are good at messing up God’s intentions.

Now, I’m looking for round figures here, but how many little children do we have on church council? 0. Well why is that? Why do you have to be 35 to run for president? Why do you have to be 21 to drink alcohol? Why do you have to be 18 to vote? Why? Because of responsibility. These limits are established, because through one form of reasoning or another, we have decided that anything under these limits is not responsible enough to hold these benefits. You don’t let a teenager vote, because they would use their vote irresponsibly and mess up the system we have in place. It makes perfect logical sense.

I wondered for a while why these two passages get lumped together. Why Jesus talking about divorce, get placed in the same reading with Jesus welcoming the children. Then I realize something. We are both the disciples and the children. We are the ones who mess up God’s intentions, we are the ones who take such a gracious gift and squander it, and keep it to ourselves, hiding it from those who need to hear it. At the same time that we squander that gift, Jesus calls us to him, and says you are the ones to whom the kingdom of heaven is given. There hasn’t been a Christian yet who has taken that responsibility and done with it what God intended. Not one no matter how old. We’re experts at taking that gift, and taking God’s intention of redemption and forgiveness, and messing it up, and turning into condemnation, based on people’s lifestyles, based on people’s beliefs, based on people’s actions.

The Psalm lays this out perfectly for us: What are human beings that you are mindful of them? Yet you have given them dominion over the works of your hands, you have put all things under their feet. This precious gift that we have been given, the dominion over all things, the right to choose what we do and don’t do day in and day out, the Kingdom of God is in our hands. What are human beings that you are mindful of them? We are the children. We are the irresponsible ones. We are the ones to whom God keeps returning and saying, your sins are forgiven, now go and live out the Gospel, you are free.

We have been given every good blessing from God, and we have the freedom to decide what to do with it. My brothers and sisters we find ourselves in the middle of a season where we ask ourselves, “what do we do with what God has given us?” We are experts of messing up the gifts that God gives us, squandering them, hiding them. But we are forgiven. We are given the keys to God’s kingdom again and again, even though we are not worthy. We are experts at messing things up. A big part of this stewardship campaign that we are all on together is figuring out what we are going to do with what God has given us. Not figuring out who has given us everything we have, but what is our response to those gifts. I cannot tell you what you have, nor can I tell you what you should do with it, but I can suggest something as you reflect on what you are going to do with what you have. Turn to the giver, ask for direction. You see the disciples get spoken to in an angry manner, when they decide what is best for the children of God. They are experts at messing up God’s intentions. But God is the only expert for declaring what God’s intentions are, and when we understand ourselves as little children, the ones who are irresponsible and completely dependent, then we shall be given the kingdom of God. And we shall hear God’s intentions for us. Pray and ask, then listen. We are the inheritors of all that we see, but the intentions of these gifts can only be discerned by God. We are the little children of God.

A New List!

I know exactly what you're thinking: "What's a "P" doing with a list, let alone two?" Believe me, I understand. Before you have a fear of me slipping completely into "J"ness and having a list of lists, let me explain.

It has been brought to my attention, most notably by Pr. David Hively, that we are all too quick to point out when people do things poorly but very slow to announce when someone does something well. While the "People Who Need a Punch in the Face" list is quite good and extensive, it should not be left unchecked. That being said, in order to maintain dualistic tension, I hereby announce the construction of the "People Who Deserve a Biscuit" list. The story of the biscuit is told in the post directly below this one.

The inaugural member of the "People Who Deserve a Biscuit" list is Pastor George Haynes from Rockport, Texas. Pastor Haynes is one of the Stewardship Key Leaders for the ELCA. He is organizing and heading the stewardship campaign at St. Mark. He preached three of the most energetic sermons I have ever seen, back to back to back. Then, he got up and gave two consecutive talks sharing the vision of the future with the congregation. Beyond that, he was up at 5 on Sunday morning, and it was nearly 2:30 when we dropped him off at the airport, still as upbeat and joyful as when I first saw him that morning. Sure, anybody might be able to do that, but here's the kicker...he's 79 years old. He truly is a model of following the vision and living a full life in the faith. Bravo, Pr. Haynes. Bra-vo, a biscuit for you.

The Story of the Biscuit

A long time ago in a land far, far away there was a kingdom called Eastern Michigan University. While several of the princes of this kingdom were returning from their dining engagements, one of them, Kirk, held aloft a fresh biscuit procured from the dining commons. Kirk, the drummer and heavy metal enthusiast of the group, then declared, "Alas, I shall give this biscuit to the next person my eyes fall upon." As luck would have it, a mere five steps after uttering this quote, a knight drew near. Kirk extended his hand with the most precious object and asked, "Hey, man you want a biscuit?" to which the knight replied, "Naw, dog. I'm tight."

To deny such a gift was an insult to the group of princes as they snickered at the exchange of words. Which led to a meeting of the princes. It was thus declared that a biscuit is not something that could be handed out to any Tom, Dick, or Sally. The decision to pass on a biscuit must be heavily weighed and analyzed, for some cannot handle the prize, and some are not worthy of trying. From that day forward, a biscuit would be presented to whomever the princes deemed worthy, and thus the tradition of the bestowing of the biscuit was born.

Sermon Numero Dos

So after the success and acceptance of the first sermon, the second effort could only go downhill. Not only was I not impressed with this one, but neither was my supervisor. I still think I faithfully pulled something out of the text without putting too much crap into it, but it just wasn't fully developed:

I can’t speak for you, but I’ll be the first to say that having someone watch my every move gets on my nerve. Have you ever had that boss or that supervisor (look?) that looked over your shoulder and wanted to make sure you got everything right? Or maybe one of your parents, when you were growing up always made sure that you brushed your teeth before you went to bed, and washed your hands before every meal.
When we have someone that close to us, it makes us feel a bit uncomfortable. We feel the pressure of every action we perform as if the entire world depended on it. Every minute little detail becomes the most important detail ever, even if it isn’t the reality of the situation; and if we mess up, it’ll be the end.
There’s a piece of that that shines through in our reading today. “For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him”. God has established with us a relationship so close, that not only does God see the same things we see, but God sees them the same way that we see them. This God is always looking over our shoulder, always checking not only our actions, but our intentions behind the actions that others around us can’t see. When I think back about that boss looking over our shoulder, I imagine making even the slightest mistake, or even doing something correctly, but not in the manner that it is usually done. And I hear the voice hit my ears, and it makes me wince to even think about it. “Hmm, now why’d you do that?” And before you can even think to explain it, you have to try and figure out in your head a good explanation for why you figured it out the way you did, sometimes even lying in the process to make yourself to look better. But God doesn’t buy those excuses.
There is a benefit to having a God that is so intimate with us that our inmost thoughts are known, and that is, God won’t let us get into a hole so deep that we can’t get out. Much like the parent who corrects their child when wrong, God guides us down the path we should be on. But there’s another side to having someone that close, and often, I think we like to glaze over that fact.
It’s a little less glamorous than God always coming to the rescue. Even in today’s reading from Deuteronomy it is skipped. If you read verse 3, one of the verses left out of the lectionary reading, you’ll see the other side. Let me read verse 3 for you….(at lectern) “Deuteronomy 4:3-4 You have seen for yourselves what the LORD did with regard to the Baal of Peor-- how the LORD your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed the Baal of Peor,” You see, that flip side, is that we are accountable for every action we take, every thought that passes through our mind, every feeling that passes through our heart. This is that anxiety and fear that comes from having someone so close to us, that every mistake that we make is going to be noticed, and every slip up is going to need an answer.
Barbara Brown Taylor made a good notice of this twp sided relationship “The God who created the heavens and earth also created the flood, and the God who parted the Red Sea is the same one who ordered Abraham to slit Isaac’s throat.” We have not been granted a free ticket excusing us from everything we have ever done, or every thing that we will do, there will be a judgment, where God will ask, “hmm, now why did you do that?”
Before you get the idea that cleaning up your act is the answer, consider the path of Jesus. He that knew no sin, he who was servant to all. Our savior. And where did his life lead him? To hang on a tree, to die for the very people he served and empowered and healed.
That is our path, that is our call. We have no good answer for why we act the way we do, for why we commit the sins we do, we have no good answer for “Why did you do that?” God knows this, and the cost for ours sins is death. God holds us accountable for our actions. But if you recall, there is another part of having someone so close to us. That no matter how big of a hole we dig ourselves into, God will not let us get in so deep that we cannot be dug out. You see, death, is the last hole that you will ever be in, and it is so deep, that you cannot dig yourself out of it. But God, the God who not only sees what we see but sees how we see, does not leave us in the hole of death. Rather, when we have done all that we can do, and we are buried as deep as we can go, God does not leave us. God responds by extending a compassionate hand, and a loving tear and asks “Why did you do that?” and makes sure that what seemed to be the end, the biggest hole we could possibly end up in, is the beginning of a life that has no end and no fear.
We are recipients of this gift, as Christ has made known to us by his work on the cross and his ascension. We are a people that have been promised by a God that is so close we cannot hide even what we think. And so we hear the words of Deuteronomy 4:9 in a new light. “Deuteronomy 4:9 But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children's children—“ Never forget that you are God’s, not because you have elected to be, but because God has claimed you as his own. And because of that, you are accountable to everything you have done and will do. And remember that above all else, God has your best interest at heart, even if sometimes it seems just the opposite is true. The mark of this is the cross, that the God who watches our every move would be willing to be humbled to such an extent that even in the deepest hole, there is new life. Never let that slip your mind, for it is who you are, and be sure to tell your children and your children’s children of the Good News of our always watching God. Amen.

The Temporary Solution...

Erie Insurance was kind enough to secure a rental car for me, due to the demise of my beloved Maxima. Since, due to high demand, they were literally signing in cars and immediately signing them back out to people waiting in line, I got the next one in line. I never wanted to own an SUV, and I doubt I ever will, but for the next few days, I'll have one. This is a side by side analysis of the cars actual sized so you can see the difference between the two machines, sort of. Keep an eye out for the new car pics soon.

DJ was wrong?!? But That's Only Happened One Other Time in History!

I know, that's what I was thinking. Well, it comes with an apology...sort of. You see "The guy who sold me my car" has to be pulled off the list. While he did have grand ideas about leaving me outside in the rain (see previous post), he did fix my car at reduced cost even though he didn't have to, and suggested some preventitive maintenance as well. This was enough to make me ambivalent as to whether or not he should be on the list, and so I decided to err on the side of grace (thank you Senor Luther). So the list has become one shorter, and if Ernesto wasn't dead already, he'd be quick to fill in the vacant spot. Expect more on that later, but for now, suffice it to say that the list has been truncated. Oh and on a side note 49ers to win the Super Bowl!

The Lists Continue...

Thanks to Dave and his People Who Should Get Rabies list and Chrisy and her 2x4 list, I have been inspired to continue my "People Who Need to be Punched in the Face" list.

Current addition: (play on the word edition (I chuckled once then realized it wasn't funny)) The Guy Who Sold Me My Car.

The story begins with him being in the unfortunate situation of trying to replace the Green Dragon, which is a spot I wish on nobody. The new car ran smoothly until about a week ago (two weeks after purchase) when the window stopped working, locking it in the "rolled down" position. I took it to a local shop, they said, "$360 bucks", I said, "I'll talk to 'The Guy Who Sold Me My Car'". There was an issue with the door when they sold it to me that they said they'd fix so they agreed to fix the window too, in case they were related.

Well, as you may have heard, Tropical Storm Ernesto is creeping its way up the coast, and is currently making Virginia rainy. The brilliant idea of "The Guy Who Sold Me My Car" was that I should drop the car off to them the evening before their mechanic came in, so he could look at it first thing. Which is a good idea, unless it is raining and your window won't roll up.

I drove 45 minutes in the (not pouring but definitely coming down) rain. Then when I got there, he had already left for the evening. After standing outside for a half an hour, assuming that I had misheard his words for the meeting, I called the building. We could hear the phone ringing inside, and the answering machine pick up. Well, on the answering machine there was an additional number to call, so I dialed it. He picked up promptly, and told me that he had called our house about 5 minutes before we got there to tell us he wasn't going to be there, and we could drop the car off and leave the key in the slot. This being after I talked to him the day before and confirmed that he would be there at the appointed time.

Now I'm not saying that there couldn't have been an emergency, but I'm gathering from the drunken voices of men yelling on the phone when I called that he wasn't in the hospital worried about his baby girl. Jwek. He's so on the punch in the face list that it isn't funny.

First sermon in a strange new land

Since the pattern seems to be that internship sermons get posted on blogs, I decided to throw mine out there. I didn't particularly like how it turned out, but I don't know why. It got a lot of positive feedback from the congregation though, with one man almost in tears. Oh well, maybe you can figure out why I didn't like it that much:

I love the characters in John’s Gospel. Typically in the Bible we come across people that really hit our situation and our place in life, and I have to say that in general, I identify quite closely to the people we meet in John. I’m speaking specifically in this reading about the Jews. While they are plural, in this part of John’s Gospel they are lumped together to act as one “person”.
There is something common to a lot of the people that we meet in John, they come off as absolute fools. Let me give you a few examples: Nicodemus, upon hearing that we must be “born again” or “born from above”, begins to wonder about how he is going to crawl back into his mother’s womb; or the disciples, when they are suggesting that Jesus eat food**, and he replies, “I have food to eat that you do not know about”, they say to one another, “No one brought him any food, right?” It is indicative of people who for one reason or another, just don’t seem to catch on.
In this particular reading, we see a similar situation develop. After all, if we can prove who Jesus’ father and mother are, then there is no way that he came down from heaven. Oh, my, you silly, silly fools. This shows a different misunderstanding which resonates with me, and maybe you can see if it touches you in the same way. You see once I get something stuck in my head, and I get it figured out, and I convince myself that it’s true there’s no way you’re getting rid of that, no way you’re gonna change my mind. I’ll give you an example – “When you’re getting ready to cook an oven bake pizza, what is the first step? (Check with congregation) Of course after removing the wrapper. The first step is to pre-heat the oven. Everybody knows that, but do you know what I do? I start the oven, and immediately stick the pizza in. Of course it’s not following the instructions, but for some reason, I have it stuck in my head that the proper way to cook that pizza is to not wait for the oven to warm up.
Anne Wilson Schaef calls that an addiction. From her book, “When Society Becomes an Addict”, she writes, “An addiction is anything that we are not willing to give up”. An addiction is anything that we are not willing to give up. It’s easy to talk about addiction when addressing things such as drug or alcohol abuse, when talking of lust, and talking of pride. These things which are either something we stand and point a finger at, or something that we lie about to ourselves and others. But addiction is so much more than the wrong that we see in others, and the behavior which we clearly recognize as wrong.
Jesus speaks of the tradition, of the manna in the wilderness. To draw that fresh in your minds, the Israelites were complaining to Moses that the Lord had led them out to this desolate landscape to let them die. The Lord responds by blanketing the ground with bread so that the Israelites may know that God is with them. This tradition is a staple which the Jews can refer to when they fear that God has abandoned them.
Jesus completely breaks down their addiction to their tradition. Do you remember that time when bread came down from heaven? When your ancestors hunger was quenched by God? Well, what happened to your ancestors? They all died! This beautiful story which reminded the people that there was hope when everything seemed tragically lost, now has lost all its punch, because the end result is that the people died…the same thing they feared before they even had bread to eat.
Imagine the things that keep you comfortable. Like your job**, or your house, or your family. These things, we have come to be thankful for because God has given them to us. But these very things, our blessings which we confess in the offertory prayer as gifts, are the same things that get in our way, and become our addictions. For the Jews, it was their tradition, their stories of God’s action with them, and maybe for us, our tradition might have that same effect.
Things just aren’t the same way they used to be. Look around, if you haven’t seen things changing then you haven’t been paying attention. But I’ll be darned if I ever let that oven get warm before I put that pizza in there.
I joke about the pizza, but I couldn’t be more serious about addictions. There’s a test to see if you are addicted to something. Try doing something different. Do your morning routine without a cup of coffee, or sit in a different seat in the sanctuary. Talk with people you don’t usually sit with. Eventually, you will find something within you that does not like being changed. That’s an addiction.
What the Gospel speaks of today is the freedom from those addictions. What I gather from Jesus’ words is that I have no idea what bread is! Everything that I’ve been given, my car, the opportunity to stand up here and preach, my dumb little oven-bake pizzas, everything I see as bread, I see it as necessary for me to do what I need to do in the world. And Jesus calls, saying, “you’ve been thankful for all those things, but let me teach you what real bread is”.
This revelation that Jesus is not only bread but the only bread we’ll ever need works itself as both Law and Gospel. First, Jesus says “that bread that you’ve been eating, that you’ve been holding onto, it’s gonna die, and as a result, you’re going to die. But this bread, my body, my flesh, this bread from heaven I am giving you, because I care too much to see you die.” You see, we may be thankful for the things we have piled up in our houses, but Jesus is the true gift we have received from heaven.
When we come to the table this morning, remember the things we have that God has given us, recall our jobs, our wealth, our freedom, remember all these things and then hear the words of Jesus, that all these gifts mean so very little. Then come and receive the true bread, for this is God’s gift, this is God revealed to us most fully, God’s grace of eternal life that will no longer die. This bread, the true presence of Christ, will give you eternal life. Amen.

The Greatest Story Ever Told: The Worst Movie Ever Filmed

For Adult Vacation Bible School here at St. Mark, we have been doing a series called "Jesus Goes to the Movies". The premise behind it all was to show movies that were made about Jesus and then discuss the theological implications that followed. Monday we watched Monty Python's The Life of Brian, Tuesday it was Jesus Christ Superstar, Wednesday The Last Temptation of Christ, and then came the treat to end all treats: The Greatest Story Ever Told.

Apparently, this thing had a $20 million budget in 1965! Like holy smokes, man. It was an absolute flop though, and with good reason. Imagine if you got inspiration to make a movie about Jesus, and then thought, "I want to take all the dull and exciting moments in the life of Jesus and synergize them with the captivating emotional power of the genealogy narratives." Yeah. There was one redeeming quality to the movie. John Wayne plays the centurion who says, "Truly this man was the Son of God," after Jesus is crucified. The reason this is entertaining is that he says it in typical John Wayne fashion: stoicly, and as if he was staring down a bank robber.

In the race for worst film ever, Brother from Another Planet(yeah, it's about a black alien) held a strong lead until I saw this movie. The redeeming quality of the alien movie was that the guy pulled out his eye, planted it in a flower, and used it as a spy camera. And so, The Greatest Story Ever Told, you take the cake. Congratulations. My only hope is that tonight's movie, Jesus of Nazareth, won't make me rename the title of my post.

The heat...THE HEAT...MY GOD, THE HEAT!!!

Sheep on the right goats on the left. What does one do when they find themselves in the middle of heat that singes the skin if you spend more than an hour in direct contact with it, barring protection of course. There seems to be an element of goat-like environment here in that sense.

And before I get too far into the hell analogies, I should note that there is very little weeping and gnashing of teeth going on. We hit 100 today(Wednesday and Thursday) with a heat index of 115, 100% humidity. As choir director Dan Landis put it: "I don't know how you have 100% humidity and still be able to breathe."

My congregation sent 20 people to help me move in. If there were any more excitement around here, the "Pee your pants terror alert" would be sunburn red. I find myself, as well, overly excited about being in this place, if only they could develop the technology for effective external air conditioning.
Here's some pictures of my Hizzle:

Bam-FREAKIN'-O

Today was a DJ day at Summer Seminary Sampler. A "P"-day, finally. We had a number of "J"-days which had "P" elements such as being at a place at the wrong time. But nothing made me feel better than this morning. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the orderliness and all that it provides, but sometimes, darn it, you gotta live in the chaos. Oh, and by the way, if you want a different perspective on the event, see Dave's Blog.

Enter Franklin County MRDD Center, Stage Right. This is a center (possibly could be labeled a resort because it was amazing inside) for children with some kind of mental or physical retardation, which gets bonus points from me just for the thought. In addition to a GIANT Connect-4 board, and countless other rooms and games that made me want to stay an entire day, we got to take part in the most brilliant idea I have ever come across:
One of the teachers told her students where pizza sauce comes from(tomatoes, of course), but one of the kids answered back, "No, it comes from a jar." So the dilemna is that these kids have no clue how food gets made. What better solution, then, to see something get made from beginning to end. Unfortunately, the garden was not quite bearing fruit(read: vegetables). The geniouses(and I mean that term completely sincerely) thought up the idea to get vegetables from the store, and "plant" them in the garden so the children could come pick them. Wow, what a freakin sweet idea!!! We spent the morning pointing out vegetables to the kids so they could harvest them and put them on plates and in baskets. Eventually a chef came in and made a salad out of the things that we gathered. They officially win every award I've ever even thought of handing out.

These kids absolutely loved the whole idea of it. There were many kids encapsulated when the chef began chopping the vegetables, some of them saying things like, "I picked that carrot." With kids running around everywhere today, it felt a little bit like the crowded home I grew up in, which is probably why it felt so good. The only thing that would have made the morning better would be a nice long soak in the ball-pit.

Reflection on July 4th, 2006

A couple of things popped in my mind:

1) Watching the third Terminator movie is kind of ironic on the 4th of July.

2) Mucho thankso to North Korea for celebrating Independence Day with us...jweks. They are so on the punch-in-the-face list it's not even funny. The next few days should be exciting to watch quick slingin' Bush Cassidy from the podium (or is it a lectern?).

3) Fireworks are exciting because they burn, and flash brightly, and make big bangs; three things which every youngster should not take part in, but they get exposure to every year. Maybe we'd have less burn accidents if we celebrated the Fourth of July by tying our feet to the bumper of a car and trying to do a handstand on a skateboard behind it. I admit, I blew my hand up with a bottle rocket once, and it wasn't because I watched fireworks the night before, but because burning, flashing, loud things are cool (thank you beavis and butthead); but i still have a right as a geezer to complain about how kids were smarter in my day and how they had more productive things to do than throw fireworks at eachother (don't take that as a suggestion).

4) How can we celebrate when our *snicker 5th ranked soccer team got annihalated by two, shall we call them, non-superpowers. We should be suspended from celebrating our nation in any way until we can at least tie the fourth graders from Iceland.

I've said my piece, Happy Fourth!

The Declaration of the Jubilee Week

Samplarian has ended, and the score is: DJ - 12, everybody else 0. If you want an explanation, you're asking the wrong person.

It occurs to me that aside from feeling very old at times (which has made for the declaration of the Jubilee Week), this group that has just packed up and left has given me great hope for the church of the future. We had a full cross-section of the fruits of the spirit represented: those well versed in scripture, those with the gift of speaking very very quickly (some might say in tongues), the jokemakers, the scholars, and those with the gift of smelling badly.

I now prepare to pack as the summer has almost come to a close for me, and I am tired, but I trust that all necessary energy and strength will be given to me, when a lack of time and rest demand that I go with the pull of the spirit.

Why does Yahoo news give me ideas?

So I wake up this morning, get through my standard half-hour of drooling over myself as I look in the mirror, and march gallantly off to chapel. When what to my wondering eyes should appear¹ but freakin nothing cuz my eyes were all blurry.²
Sure enough, as soon as I sit down in front of a computer, Yahoo news shows a story about how vision loss is going to double in the next fifteen years. Why don't I jab my eyes out now, and help move that statistic along. I blame Yahoo news, who, in their attempt to monopolize the internet search industry, crept into my bedroom while I was sleeping and sprayed petroleum jelly in my eyes with an aerosol can. Expect a news story tomorrow about how communion bread that makes you cough could be giving you kidney problems.

¹ Wrong season, but it was freakin cold outside recently.^3
2 Are you sure that doesn't rhyme?^4
3,4 Footnotes suck.
⁵ Endnotes suck too. ⁵

Episode I

Remember that one time at seminary when we did that funny thing in that one place, it was freakin sweet.